Man fined for killing grey squirrel in England has wider implications
In July, a man was given a 6 months conditional discharge from Burton-upon-Trent Magistrates’ Court in Staffordshire, Central England and ordered to pay £1,547 to cover investigation and legal fees incurred by the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) for killing a grey squirrel. The man had trapped the squirrel in a cage trap and drowned it in a water butt because it kept taking food from his bird table. The RSPCA brought the case under the Animal Weldfare Act 2006 and the man admitted causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal last December. The landmark ruling is seen by the RSPCA as a test case that could have implications for the control of grey squirrels with respect to other activities such as tree damage prevention and red squirrel conservation. The story has been widely discussed in the media: BBC News UK; Telegraph; Metro;Burton Mail; Burton Mail(2).