SquirrelWeb

Claire Stevenson, PhD student, Centre for Wildlife Conservation, University of Cumbria, Newton Rigg, Penrith, Cumbria CA11 0AH. Email: Claire.Stevenson”at”Cumbria.ac.uk .  The Grey Squirrel was introduced to Britain in the 19th Century and is now widespread and continuing to increase its range. Understanding temporal and spatial dispersal patterns and, how different land cover types affect species movement and ecological networks is particularly […]

Elena Oban and colleagues have detected a poxvirus in a red squirrel road casualty from north-east Spain. The squirrel had many haematomas in its body, and skin lesions on its ear tips, tail and feet, but not on the eyelids or mouth as found with Squirrel poxvirus (SQPV) infection in red squirrels in the UK. Preliminary analysis suggest it is an orthopoxirus, […]

A new booklet entitled Red Squirrels: Naturally Scottish has been published by Scottish Natural Heritage. Written by squirrel expert Peter Lurz, this attractive 50 page booklet is packed with  information about their behaviour, ecology and threats to their conservation in Scotland. It is beautifully illustrated and can be downloaded free from SNH Publications.

The 6th International Colloquium on Arboreal Squirrels will be held in Kyoto, Japan during February 2012 (the specific dates are not yet finalised); however, you will be able to keep up-to-date on details as the web page becomes functional at: kyoto-squirrel.jp/index.html. To receive email alerts of conference details, please send your name and email contact information […]

The Countryside Council for Wales have released new conservation plans for red squirrels in Wales including: (1) to identify and monitor populations of red squirrels, including surveying all sites with records of red squirrels in the last 10 years, and monitoring focal sites; (2) to prepare and implement red squirrel management plans for focal sites; (3) to establish […]

An independently-owned Budgens grocery store in North London has started the sale of grey squirrel meat sourced from the County of Essex. However, this has been criticised by opponents such as VIVA – Vegetarians Voice for Animals – saying that this is a barbaric and needless cull and what gruesome product will be next to grace our food aisles, […]

An attractive piebald grey squirrel, with a dark, russet head, silver white back and sides and grey tail was photographed by Dennis Hawker feeding on a bird table in Somerset, England in June 2010 – the photograph has been placed in the Gallery.  Apparently, the squirrel has been a regular visitor to the garden during the summer. It would […]

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 […]

Seeing how a grey squirrel escaping ‘death by car’, Natalie Angier recently wrote a piece in the New York Times about the fascination that these animals have for biologists in USA.

Colin Bonnington is carrying out a PhD study at the University of Sheffield on the impacts of grey squirrels on birds in urban areas.