Red Squirrels Northern England (RSNE) is a red squirrel conservation partnership in the north of England, principally in Cumbria, Northumberland, Merseyside, Lancashire, north-west Durham and the Yorkshire Dales. Visit their web site if you want to join a red squirrel group, send in a sighting or find out where to see red squirrels in these regions.
A new website has been launched about squirrels in France – Les écureuils en France. It not only covers information about the native red squirrel but also alien invaders such as the red-bellied squirrel and the Siberian chipmunk. The site also makes the point that the alien North American grey squirrel introduced into Italy is not that […]
A recent paper published by Pečnerová & Martínková in Zoologica Scripta (see Publications page) using phylogenetic reconstruction shows that tree squirrels evolved in the Northern Hemisphere with the first group to diverge from a common ancestor being Tamiasciurus followed by Sciurus in the Palaearctic and Reithrosciurus in Indo-Malayasia. Thereafter overland colonisation resulted in the present-day […]
The 6th International Colloquium on Arboreal Squirrels will be held in Kyoto City, Japan, from 4th to 8th February, 2012. The colloquium is held every 3 years; previous veues have been U.S.A (1994), U.S.A. (2000), England (2003), India (2006), and Canada (2009). These meetings cover any aspect of the biology of tree and flying squirrels from all over […]
Recently, a project with European funding started in Italy with the principal aim of eliminating or managing the risks posed by the introduction of the alien grey squirrel from North America, and with particular respect to conserving the native red squirrel. Full details of the project can be found on the dedicated EC-SQUARE web site.
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, […]
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 […]