Border becomes frontline in fight to protect red squirrels

NATURE: Angus and Aberdeenshire are key to ensuring the animal’s survival

The Angus/aberdeenshire border has become a key battleground in the fight to protect Scotland’s red squirrels.

With emerging evidence in recent weeks that rival grey squirrels are creeping towards red territory, conservation experts have mounted a call to residents to report sightings of both varieties in a bid to stem the species conflict.

The non-native grey squirrels have occurred sporadically in low numbers between the Rivers South Esk and North Esk, the latter forming a natural boundary between Angus and Aberdeenshire.

But growing numbers of greys have now been spotted north of the North Esk at Benholm and in Inglismaldie

Woods, near Laurencekirk, sparking fears a decade of hard work to protect Aberdeenshire’s red squirrels could be undone.

Red squirrel numbers have fallen dramatically in recent decades to around 120,000 in Scotland.

Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels, a National Lottery-funded partnership project led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, has been working since 2009 to restore the red squirrel population by removing the grey squirrel competitor.

As a result, grey squirrels have been increasingly confined to urban Aberdeen in recent years.

Aberdeen is the only location in northern Scotland which has an established grey squirrel population.

The ongoing monitoring campaign across the region, which relies heavily on the help of local volunteers, has enabled the project to detect remaining populations of grey squirrels and remove them to protect Scotland’s core red squirrel populations in Aberdeenshire, Moray, the Highlands and Argyll.

Sightings of both species can be reported at scottishsquirrels.org.uk.

The red squirrel population has dramatically declined.