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RED ALERT Red Squirrel Conservation in the UK by Jules Evans
UK native squirrels are being driven out by an American invasion, but there’s still time for us to save their day I’m walking with husband Ed and lurcher dog Spyder in a winter woodland not far from our home in Cumbria, UK. Overhead, the dense canopy of frost laden branches seem peaceful and quiet. Spyder lopes, head down and tail up, enthusiastically exploring the fragrant fallen pine cones and needles that form a carpet under our boots. February breezes rustle, and tribal ravens rise noisily from the tree tops, united against an ever increasing army of magpies in black and white uniforms. Ahead, a solitary buff plumaged jay forages the forest floor, but our arrival is an interruption and swiftly it takes refuge in the lofty branches of a dormant oak. Looking down at us, it opens its beak wide and utters a raucous cry that echoes through the trees. The jay’s harsh call still rings in our ears as we hop over deep ruts in the track and splash through muddy chasms left by foresters’ vehicles. We continue deeper and darker into the sentinel tree trunks until a slight noise from above, and a pine cone falling at our feet, makes us look upwards. We glimpse a grey squirrel leaping with breathtaking accuracy across the intertwined network of branches and while we watch his incredible acrobatics I am reminded that there’s a war being fought overhead – and it’s not between ravens and magpies. The participants in this conflict know nothing, and care less, about the outcome. Still, it’s war and each year the same side suffers significant losses. There’s no fight to the death between these armies, nor even any intention to wound. Oh, there may be the odd squabble over a hazelnut cache, or possession of a drey, but generally both sides are just happy going about the business of foraging for all important supplies, making dreys, and conserving foodstocks. The temperature plummets and my long suffering husband, Ed, glances at his watch, feeling the cold and thinking fondly of hot coffee and the log fire back home. Spyder too, looks less than happy. Lurchers love a run, but they love the fireside better – they both look at me pleadingly! I sigh and stow the camera and map back into my rucksack, then hand out some chocolate – just to keep us all going on the way back to the log fire. I want to find out more about our red squirrels and their grey foes, and what’s to prevent me doing just that from the comforts of log fire, hot coffee, reference books and the Internet to hand? So that’s exactly what I did, and this is what I learned: REDS Vs GREYS Indigenous to the British Isles, the red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris L) is a lovely little creature, so shyly elusive that many of us may never see one in a lifetime. And, if the present situation cannot be reversed, nobody will see a red squirrel in its native land again. This endearing inhabitant of our woodlands, endlessly characterised in children’s stories by Beatrix Potter and captured in so many amateur video films, is under dire threat from the larger grey squirrel (S. carolinensis Gmelin) which was introduced to Britain from North America between 1876 and 1929. The battle is quietly being won, though there are no glory medals for the winners, and the losers, fearing no aggression from the usurpers, are unsuspecting and docile. So it isn’t violent confrontations between reds and greys. No wrestling with every claw and tooth embedded in the enemy, no fur flying or blood letting. What casts doubt over the future of red squirrels is the sheer population of the greys. The odds are heavily stacked against the reds because there are estimated to be 2.5 million American grey squirrels against the 160,000 red squirrels left in Britain. The reds prefer a pine habitat like the one on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour on the British south coast, one of its safer retreats. Even in the north where pine and conifer are plentiful the red squirrel is declining, and wherever it is in decline the swelling tide of greys take over. IDENTIFYING SQUIRREL NUTKIN
The red squirrel, also called the common or brown squirrel, is found throughout Europe and Asia from the British Isles in the west to north-east China in the east, and from the Arctic Circle in the north down to Mediterranean, Caucasus, Ural and Atlai mountains in the south. Because of this wide distribution there are varied colours of red and brown due to interbreeding. Usually though, the underside is white, the ears distinctively tufted, and its chestnut coat at prime in winter. Without a really good look at a squirrel, which is often impossible when your quarry is playing hide-and seek in the topmost branches of a towering pine, it’s sometimes not easy to identify the two species because greys might have reddish-brown backs, and the reds can have a large percentage of grey in their coats. The grey squirrel has smaller ear tufts but a larger body overall, weighing in at approximately 550 grams compared to the lightweight red at approx 300grams. In autumn, both species gain a little weight. There’s no particular month to squirrel watch because they don’t hibernate, though in extreme weather they will curl up in the drey for a couple of days and try to conserve energy until hunger forces them out to forage for food. Dear to a squirrel’s heart, both reds and greys, are hazel nuts and pine cones because of their nutritious seeds. Squirrels eat a wide range of food including tree seeds, fruit, bark, lichens and fungi. Sometimes, depending on the season, they might eat insects and birds eggs. In hard weather when food is dwindling they may need to search hard over wide areas for food, and much energy is expended on these long expeditions. They may have to forage all the waking day for what they can find, and even this may not be enough to make up body weight lost in the effort. Consequently, in dire food shortage many squirrels die. Greys and reds aren’t seen to fight, and nothing suggests that the larger greys actively chase away the smaller reds. In a nutshell, ( forgive the pun) the problem seems purely a matter of food and habitat. If each species preferred only certain trees or certain kinds of foods, there would be plenty left for all. But the trouble is that they both eat much the same thing, make the same kinds of dreys in the same kinds of trees, and will even use each other’s dreys. The more grey squirrels thrive in any given area, the less food there is for the reds – they are simply being starved out. SURVIVAL Perhaps if red squirrels were aggressive and territorial creatures foraging in large groups and actively chasing away any competition, they may have been able to protect their habitat and consequently their food supplies. But they are solitary creatures most of the time and not territorially minded, with the exception that breeding females will jealously guard their own area against other females. Squirrels will inhabit a home range area that contains all needs – food, dreys and mates. After mating, male squirrels take no part in raising the family. Gestation takes six weeks, and the young – up to six at a time, but more usually two or three – suckle for ten weeks, and after weaning are fully independent. Once weaned, a young squirrel’s survival depends on finding enough food. Between 75 and 85% of young ones die during their first winter. If they survive, their chances improve by 50% each year, though most squirrels die before they are seven years old. Many fall victim to starvation and extreme cold and disease, but as the network of motorways and bypasses increases throughout Britain, so larger numbers of squirrels have become road kill statistics in common with hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, rabbits and toads. It was once thought that another reason for the red squirrels’ demise was that grey squirrels spread the Parapox virus to the reds, a deadly illness with symptoms similar to myxomatosis, including ulceration, scabs, lesions, and swellings of the face and around the eyes. However, no evidence has been found, and both reds and greys die from the virus. CONSERVATION Happily, our shy, pretty little indigenous squirrel has many supporters. In 2003, Professor David Bellamy backed a campaign launched by the magazine ‘Cumbria Life’ to bring the decline of the red squirrel to public notice. The aim was also to raise money for specially constructed squirrel hides in Whinlatter Forest where the public could watch native squirrels, and to provide rope ‘squirrel bridges’ over roads to cut down the road kill. Professor Bellamy was quoted as saying, ” With the correct approach, including correct habitat management and control of the feral competitor, the red squirrel can survive, and Cumbria has a crucially important population of them. The Wildlife Trust, working with other experts, is already spearheading the way, not only with the red squirrel but with many other endangered species. Wherever greys threaten to overrun reds, removing them by the most humane ways possible is the key to success.” Since then, much has been done and red squirrels are now protected by law and cannot be trapped, killed, kept, or have their dreys damaged or disturbed, except under licence from English Nature, The Countryside Council for Wales, or Scottish Natural Heritage. It is believed that much can be done to lessen competition for food and habitat between the reds and greys by planning areas of woodlands that are preferred by the reds who, though they may inhabit broadleaved woodlands, prefer conifer forests because they can forage them more successfully. Their survival statistics tend to be higher in pine and conifer environments. Red squirrels also have a preference for conifer trees of between 20-40 years of age because the amount of tree seed is greater, and the canopy of branches is dense. Wherever broadleaf trees also seed and grow among conifers, they attract grey squirrels and the competition begins. Therefore, although broadleaved trees such as oak, beech and chestnut look more attractive and support a wider variety of wildlife, flora and fauna beneath them, they are not necessarily good news for squirrel Nutkin. The best way to keep red squirrels thriving is to keep greys out of their area, or to keep their numbers non-threatening. This can be achieved with a habitat management scheme that would change former tree species planting by taking into account the age structure of pine and conifer plantations in order to suit reds but not greys. Another helpful strategy to ensure that Nutkin has enough food is the Forestry Authority’s innovative design of special feeders. These can be filled with squirrel food, but when the heavier greys enter the feed hopper via a tunnel, their weight triggers the see-saw floor to tip over and they fall out minus a meal! Of course, none of this is good news for grey squirrels where, in some areas, they are now regarded much the same as vermin and are being hunted, trapped and killed. It’s a highly debatable subject because, once again, humans are interfering with nature. We are playing God, if you like, in deciding which animals are hauled aboard the survival ark and which are left to perish! This is not an ideal situation either. But it’s a fact that if the grey squirrel hadn’t been brought to the British Isles from its original home in North America, red squirrels would still be found throughout this land, and not just eking an existence in smaller and smaller pockets of woodland. Hopefully, the grey squirrel will not need to be eradicated in order to save the reds. Greys, too, are charming and cheeky and bolder than Nutkin, but the reds deserve to survive in their native forests, carrying out their age-old routines and delighting future generations with their lofty antics – if only we can spot them!
WHERE TO SEE RED SQUIRRELS IN THE UK. Whinlatter Forest Park, Nr Keswick, Cumbria, UK - Forest rangers have installed a camera which relays pictures of resident forest squirrels at work and play to a screen in the visitor centre. Formby Point, Merseyside, UK - National Trust Red Squirrel Reserve. Population of about 1000 squirrels - one of the best locations for a close encounter as the squirrels are used to being fed by the numerous human visitors. See http://www.getoutguide.co.uk/outdoors/outdoors/formby_point.htm for more info. Car parking charge applies, nuts can be bought on site, or bring your own. Brownsea Island, Poole, Dorset. UK - Spot reds ‘au naturel’ in the pines, if you can. Boats run regularly from Poole Quay from Easter to end of September. Brownsea Island is National Trust owned and there is an admittance charge. Cafe, shop, beaches, woodlands, wildlife, birdlife. Isle of Wight, UK. A small population of reds. Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, UK Hope Forest, Derbyshire, UK. Scotland and Northern England, generally. WANT TO KNOW MORE? Read: The Red Squirrel by John Gurnell, published by The Mammal Society. £3.50 The Mammal Society Postal address: 2b Inworth Street London SW11 3EP Tel: 020 7350 2200 Mammals Trust UK . Peoples Trust For Endangered Species Postal address: Freepost, LON17312, 15 Cloisters House 8 Battersea Park Road, London SW8 4YY Wildlife Trust www.wildlifetrust.org Reference sources used in researching this feature: The Red Squirrel by John Gurnell. Excellent factual information can be obtained from this book. The Mammal Society Westmorland Gazette Cumbria Life magazine.
© Jules Evans February 2006. Photos © Creative Women's Network Red Alert - the plight of the red squirrel in the UK by Jules Evans. Compost, a Rich Subject Britain's Threatened Frogs Helping Hand for Hedgehogs EDITOR'S NOTE Grey squirrel in the editor's garden I have lots of grey squirrels living in my garden and love watching them. To me both red and grey ones are a delight. I just had to share these photos with you too!
"Is anyone looking?"
"Right - I'm going for it"
"At last!"
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