Despite an outbreak of squirrelpox virus (SPQV) in 2017, red squirrels in the city of Bangor in North Wales have increased in 2018. SQPV is carried by grey squirrels and invariably fatal to red squirrels (The Bangor Aye). Red Squirrels Trust Wales has embarked on a project (Painting the Town Red) to rid the city […]
A recent paper by Emma Sheehy and colleagues (Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2018) has provided empirical evidence that, as pine martens extend their range in the north of Britain, alien grey squirrel numbers fall. In contrast, native red squirrel populations are not affected and can recover from the competitive effects of […]
A recent paper published in the scientific journal Animal Behaviour by Pizza Chow and colleagues has demonstrated that alien grey squirrels are slightly better than native red squirrels at solving certain problems involving the removal of hazelnuts from transparent plastic containers. The study has attracted a lot of attention in the media (International Business Times, UPI, Sky News, Channel […]
Recently the UK Government has stressed out the need to control grey squirrels to prevent bark-stripping damage to trees. The BBC Programme, Daily Politics, debated the issue on 30/1/18 with Craig Shuttleworth from Bangor University, and Natalia Doran from the group Urban Squirrels (see a clip BBC News).
An EU funded and National Lottery Sciurus Life project is launched that will enable local communities across the north of England and Wales to become involved in conserving the red squirrel. The Sciurius Life project aims are to: Develop mechanisms to prevent the unintentional introduction of grey squirrels to currently uncolonised woodland landscapes; Develop early warning/rapid response mechanisms to ensure the island of Anglesey in North Wales is not recolonised; Develop rapid response mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of grey squirrels in urban woodlands with high biodiversity and tourism value; Develop early warning systems to detect grey squirrels in sparsely populated rural landscapes; Develop more efficient strategic mechanisms to evolve community-based grey squirrel management; Quantify the financial and community-based resources needed to achieve regional eradication; […]
In January, Ministers of the Environment, Agriculture and Economic Development in Italy signed a decree that forbids any trade, breeding or possession of North American grey squirrels and other alien species, such as Pallas squirrels, throughout the country. The development is significant because many of the alien grey squirrel discovered in the region of Lombardy, […]
Conservation efforts to return red squirrels to the island of Angelsey off the north west coast of Wales have gone so well that red squirrels are now being seen in people’s gardens. Over the past 15 years, conservation work has involved removing alien grey squirrels and reintroducing red squirrels to boost the dwindling population. Now […]
Friends of the Anglesey Red Squirrels (FARS) are planning to cull large numbers of grey squirrels in the area between Bangor and the Ogwen Valley. Red squirrels have spread from Anglesey to the Mainland as a result if the intensive conservation measures carried out on the island by Craig Shuttleworth and colleagues largely involving removing […]
M. Laura Guichón writes: “In 2003, I began studying the invasion dynamics of an alien mammal in Argentina: the Red-Bellied Beautiful Squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus). Less than five individuals of this arboreal species, native to South-east Asia, were liberated in the Pampas region, Argentina, in 1973. Initial questionnaire surveys have suggested that its distribution in this […]
Clare Tattoni Red squirrels beware A recently discovered population of the North American grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), introduced to Ticino Park, Lombardy (N Italy), is likely to spread into continuous prealpine broadleaf forests of Lombardy and the south of Switzerland. The replacement of red by grey squirrels that is taking place in Piedmont, northern Italy, […]