Red squirrels
New for our 2020 survey, we wanted to get a picture of how common the native red squirrel is in GW reader gardens. Sadly, compared with the introduced grey, reds are rarely seen in your gardens – just four per cent of readers spotted them, compared with 96 per cent who have the grey visiting. Yet a whopping 78 per cent of you think we should be doing everything we can to save the red squirrel, and 25 per cent want to save it from extinction over other species, coming second only to the hedgehog.
Yet things are not looking good for the red squirrel. Despite being widespread across the country just 70 years ago, the species is now restricted to a few areas of the British Isles. These include parts of Lancashire, Northumberland, Wales, the Isle of Wight and Aberdeenshire, Angus and Moray in Scotland. It’s estimated that the red squirrel has declined from a population high of 3.5 million to 120,000. Just 15,000 red squirrels are thought to be left in England.
Habitat loss is clearly a factor in the demise of the red, but it’s the grey that causes the most problems. Introduced from the USA in Victorian times, the grey outcompetes the red for food and carries the fatal squirrelpox virus, which greys are immune to. According to conservation group Red Squirrels Northern England (RSNE), nearly all red squirrels that contract squirrelpox virus die within two weeks.
DO YOUR BIT If you have red squirrels locally, buy a bespoke squirrel feeder and fill it with unsalted peanuts, hazelnuts in their shells and sunflower seeds. You can also take part in a red squirrel monitoring scheme at britishredsquirrel. org/getting-involved and scottishsquirrels.org.uk