I remember as a child learning my road safety from a cute squirrel called Tufty. As part of the education on how to cross the road I got a certificate. This still gets a mention on my CV. In the Lake District, where I grew up, the squirrels had overtaken one of the bird boxes in the garden and my dad would hand feed them hazel nuts from the window sill. Now these lovely animals also appeared in Beatrix Potter boxes and more recently as stars in the Gruffalo. All well and good but each of the above are all red squirrels, native species of Great Britain. They are being forced into extinction by an invader, the grey squirrel.
The grey squirrel is an aggressive, territorial animal that spreads disease and causes great damage to gardens. There is a illness called squirrel pox that the grey carries which is fatal to the red. Due to the rapid growth of the grey population and the power of the pox, red squirrels are isolated to small pockets of population. Years ago the public were urged to kill grey squirrels to the point where a bounty was paid for each tail presented at the local police station. In the wild they dig up bulbs, takes berries, nuts and bird eggs and ravage your cat.
As they are classed as a pest species you cannot release them into the wild. This was tested when a gentleman from Burton upon Trent drowned a squirrel he had caught in a trap. If he had handed it in to the RSPCA, hit it over the head or shot it, he would not have been prosecuted for animal cruelty. Part of the argument is that people find all squirrels cute and cuddly but they don’t realise the damage they can cause to your home or garden. Squirrels are excellent climbers and can empty mature trees of all their nuts and also get into roof spaces where they can wreak havoc on wiring and stored possessions.
With the current mild winter the grey tree rats have not hibernated. This can only mean of them foraging on the spring bulbs. The solution? Part one tomorrow …
