Islands in the red-squirrel stream
Almost all around Britain, there are islands that either have red squirrels or should have them. The first that I visited, several years ago, was the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, which has what is regarded as the healthiest population of red squirrels in Britain. How red squirrels initially arrived there is still shrouded in mystery. However, it is said that, because the locals wanted squirrels and the usual conservation purists didn’t, the squirrels magically appeared—and subsequently flourished—after being ferried across the sea in a laundry basket. This mode of travel is, on reflection, a most secure, safe and comfortable way for squirrels to travel. I would like somebody with an equally dependable laundry basket to do the same on squirrel-less Mull.
After Mull, they can take their magical laundry basket of reds to the Isle of Man. I tried hard to get ‘reds’ onto this selfgoverning British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea. However, once again, the conservation purists—who claimed that red squirrels were not native to the island, where there is a flourishing population of wild, non-native wallabies!— won the day.
In recent years, there has been a very successful reintroduction of red squirrels to support the dwindling population on Anglesey and an equally successful effort to control the invading ‘greys’, overseen by Dr Craig Shuttleworth. The Isle of Wight also boasts a flourishing population of indigenous reds—fortunately, the Solent is a bit too wide for grey squirrels to swim across. Predation by buzzards is quite a problem, but is to be expected in this day and age, when, in my view, many conservationists are in a state of complete denial about what eats what. Several other islands in the Weymouth area have red-squirrel enclaves, too, such as Brownsea, where Robert Baden-powell first encouraged Scouts to camp out. On a visit there a few years ago, I felt the red squirrels needed more supplementary feeding and a few captive-bred squirrels to improve bloodlines.
The most astonishing population of all is to be found on Mersea Island, just off the Essex coast—only just, mind you, it could be called Suburbia-on-sea. For some strange reason, I recently read some ‘stuff’ claiming that I had something to do with this brilliant scheme. In fact, I knew nothing about it until it was done—it was driven by Richard Taylor and former village bobby Ian Crossley on Mersea Island, who were inspired by the late David Stapleford, a Norfolk teacher as well as a passionate breeder and promoter of red squirrels in East Anglia. After starting with about 20 squirrels, there are now thought to be more than 60. The islanders have welcomed them and bird tables have become ‘squirrel tables’, giving people a wonderful connection with Nature. Any grey squirrels that get over at low tide are persuaded to leave and the whole thing is a most unusual and successful conservation story.