In defence of grey squirrels
Largely responsible for the decline of the UKs native red squirrel population as well as their famed destruction of tree saplings…. Grey squirrels in the UK get a bad rep, a really bad rep. Even I have held out getting too attached over the years.
Their reputation is such that they have been subject to systematic culls since the early 1900s and once evidence demonstrated these cheeky rodents were resistant to such procedures, multiple efforts were launched to find alternative ways to purge them from UK soil.
Grey squirrel contraception?
Scientists are currently trying to find a way to administer contraception to the greys to reduce population numbers. Their biggest hurdle at the moment is working out how to get it to just the greys in areas where red and grey populations coincide.
Kill grey squirrels bought into rescue centres?
In December 2019 it became law that injured grey squirrels and abandoned babies bought to rescue centres have to be euthanised rather than rehabilitated and released.
Pine marten reintroductions?
In the north of Wales and the Scottish highlands a cute faced native predator has been experiencing a resurgence in numbers and their renewed presence has had a dramatic effect. Grey squirrel populations in areas with pine martens have dropped off, whilst the red population has increased. Why this is happening is not well understood as both squirrel species serve as a tasty snack to the pine marten, but some keen naturalists are seeing Pine martens as a potential, albeit limited, grey population control method for the future.
Continued culls?
Many people are still advocates for the traditional cull. However, this wildly inhumane method is also...wildly ineffective. Intensely cull an area of grey squirrels and you’ll have a restored population in that area within 10 weeks… it doesn’t work, if it did we’d have wiped them out in the 1940s when culls first started. Unfortunately, some don’t listen to science and continue on even when you’re telling them the facts until you’re blue in the face.
Now I appreciate the sentiment. We need to help the red squirrel, which is native and is struggling largely due to the presence of the greys. But regardless I struggle with dichotomy of attitudes toward one type of squirrel and the other.
They’re both living beings, they’re all individuals, and the grey squirrel should not be punished for succeeding in a climate they were artificially introduced too.
It wasn’t stowing away on boats that bought the greys here, they’d have been quite happy remaining in North America. No, the English upper class introduced grey squirrels to England in the form of a man called Thomas Brocklehurst, who released the first pair in the 1870s. From then on, they became a popular “ornamental feature” for the rich and noble to have on their grounds so they gifted breeding pairs to each other, which resulted in the greys being introduced at hundreds of different sites across the UK.
And suddenly they’re everywhere? There was no natural spread of the greys from their initial release site, tearing away all red squirrels in their path, they were released all over the UK by humans. We are the reason they’re here, we are the reason they’re everywhere.
Yet we want to take their lives and stop them breeding because they happen to out compete the native reds. This isn’t fair, at all. Its simply mankind induced natural selection – not to mention the reds have found locations to thrive where grey squirrels simply do not inhabit such as the very north of Scotland and various British islands. They’re not doomed as some would have you believe.
If the lack of morality that comes with killing an animal we bought here and released all over our country against its will is not enough to persuade you to the greys defence, then maybe the SQPV vaccine is.
Introduced to the red squirrels by the greys, who simply carry it, the squirrel parvovirus (SQPV) is the main reason for why greys have caused the red population to decline. As reds are highly vulnerable to it and die if they contract it. However, a vaccine for SQPV has been developed in the lab. This is the golden ticket for red squirrel survival and if we can give them a defence against the disease it is likely their numbers will increase even in areas occupied by greys.
Once scientists have figured out how to administer the vaccine (its better to do it without having to directly inject it as this reduces cost/stress to the animal) then its all systems go.
So there you have it, we will have a way of promoting red squirrel survival without also promoting the downfall of the greys, we don’t have to harbour resentment toward them anymore.
Defend grey squirrels. Always innocent in their existence, they will not be the reds enemy for much longer.
