Shaun Morris, a farmer from East Yorkshire, England says he will breed animals in Holderness, an area in East Riding, and release them into woodland which he owns (BBC News).
Craig Shuttleworth, one of the country’s leading experts on red and grey squirrels and the driving force behind the return of red squirrels to the Isle of Anglesey off the northwest coast of Wales, is promoting a petition to amend the 1967 Forestry Act. The story is simple: under the Act, felling licenses cannot be […]
A camera trap set in Kielder Forest, part of a red squirrel monitoring survey in the area, has captured pictures of a pine marten. This provides evidence that pine martens are returning to northern England and bodes well for the red squirrel (Shropshire Star).
Camera traps have shown that red squirrels are using a squirrel bridge built over the A896 in Wester Ross, Scotland. The bridge was installed by Trees for Life last June; evidence collected so far indicates the number of red squirrels killed on the roads in the area has declined. (The Scotsman, Trees for Life).
The problems of plastic pollution and their horrific effects on the environment have been highlighted in recent months, with many examples of animals from whales, dolphins, fish and turtles to deer and birds that have been directly affected by discarded plastic. Recently, a red squirrel was found by a busy road in Scotland (A939 near […]
Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, The Vincent Wildlife Trust, and the Forestry Commission have published a report on the feasibility of reintroducing pine martens into the Forest of Dean in the county of Gloucestershire in the west of England. The Forest of Dean is ~110 square kilometres of mixed woodland and has a history of extensive tree […]
The Super Squirrels is a BBC TV Natural World documentary programme first shown on 19th June 2018 and currently can be viewed on BBC iPlayer until 18th July. It covers why squirrels (tree squirrels, flying squirrels, ground squirrels) are such a widespread and successful group of mammals. The programme includes items on squirrel caching behaviour and their […]
A recent article by Iloma Amos in The Scotsman discusses how releasing pine martens can help keep numbers of alien grey squirrels down, which in turn allows native red squirrels to prosper.
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 […]
A 2017 survey by Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) has indicated that red squirrels in Scotland have stabilised throughout much of the country, although there are regional differences. For example, there have been gains in the north-east around Aberdeen where grey squirrels have been extensively culled, and gains around Loch Lomand and the Trossachs National Park, […]