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zembu · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 9 Location: Holyport, Berkshire

It seems from the numbers of people viewing this forum, but not joining it, that people do not get very enthused about the problems facing Red Squirrels. In a previous post, I suggested that perhaps people had tried to join and, like me, not received the necessary recognition of an attempt to join.

Whatever the reason, it is very disappointing to see that we only have 6 members.

I wonder how we could encourage the television media to incorporate in their many wildlife programmmes clear information about the Grey Squirrel menace?

Currently, the only programmes I have seen mention them was the series with Bill Oddie. However, Mr Oddie's approach has been wrong. He has tried to encourage his viewers to think of Grey Squirrels as animals to be assimilated into the British wildlife, and to be treated by the public in the same way as any other animal. (I wrote to him complaining of this but had no reply from him.)

The same sort of thing is said by the RSPB about the rapacious Magpies and Hawks - these currently being protected and causing severe trauma to our Song Birds. I think I am correct in saying that Bill Oddie is Deputy Chief Executive of the RSPB.

So - we need to influence the RSPB as well. RSPB claims to have 1,049,392 members. If only we could educate all these people, and enthuse them in our way of thinking.

Craig · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Anglesey

Surveys by ESI indicate that most people are concerned about red squirrels. The problem that you have with this type of open forum is that there are already several established wildlife forum sites available to the general public e.g. wildaboutbritain. These sites deal with the whole spectrum of wildlife, and wildlife issues, and hence have a large membership. From my experiences running The Anglesey Red Squirrel Website your not actually doing that badly!! Lots of people browse through forums like this, but few tend to post. For example, we have 400 members and yet comments and online feedback is quite rare.

Craig

wildliferanger · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 1

The problem with Bill Oddie and many others in his position, is that they are often afraid of offending the public's sensibilities by agreeing to the necessity for a grey squirrel cull. In my experience, the public are more than capable of accepting a cull of grey squirrels, provided they are given accurate and relevant information that justifies such a course of action.

Obtaining their agreement is obviously easiest where greys can be seen to be replacing reds, and hardest where that replacement happened long ago. Things are not helped by the amount of misinformation put out by the animal rights activists, usually by saying that it's not the greys that are at fault but reduction of the woodland cover by people. Obviously red squirrels need woodlands, but without the presence of the greys we would still have them in most areas.

It should also be remembered by those seeking to blame reductions in numbers of songbirds on hawks and magpies, that grey squirrels can inflict severe damage on eggs and nestlings, due to the high densities of most grey squirrel populations - often 5+ times greater than that of red squirrels. That's not to say that hawks and magpies have no effect, and the effect of magpie predation is often made worse by bad management of the countryside, reducing the number of safe nesting sites.

The only two people I have heard on TV programmes with a sensible approach to grey squirrels have been Iolo Williams on his wildlife programmes (including one on the Anglesey Red Squirrel Project that is run so well by Craig), and Robin Page.

numenius · Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 5

I'm surprised to keep seeing predation by hawks etc raised in these discussions. Unless I'm mistaken, are not 99% of hawks native and thus part of the ecosystem here? They were eating reds long before greys appeared, and that did no harm to the numbers. I suggest that songbird depletion might have more to do with habitat loss, cats and slug pellets and man-made things like that (cat populations are artificaly HUGE and take an enromous toll on songbirds).
Since Greys (like Mink) are introduced animals, there is a big difference in the justification for eradication. I think it does us no favours if we appear to be objecting to natural predators too -we can't take all the reds home and keep them in the house for safety! [/i]

tarragon · Joined: 22 Jun 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Chertsey, Surrey

I would have to agree with numenius. Even though their numbers are few and I totally support all that is being done to maintain and increase the Red Squirrel population, the native species of animals and birds should not be harmed. They have lived side by side without destroying each other in the past and that is what should continue.

Would a petition poll on the Downing Street website help to gain support for a national cull of the Grey Squirrel population?

nickshanks · Joined: 16 Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Hertfordshire

My suggestion would be to put colour pictures of reds with squirrelpox onto adverts wherever was affordable and reached the most people.

"American grey squirrels infect and kill our native reds. Help by donating to your local red squirrel society." would be a nice headline underneath the photo, to raise awareness and perhaps some money too.

numeniusaqua · Joined: 07 Feb 2009 Posts: 4 Location: Nr Morpeth

Perhaps we could get funding from MI5? See:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/arti...article_id=57527&in_page_id=2

Jimbo · Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 1

I think part of the problem is that people think squirrels generally are cute animals, but round here (outer London) they only ever see grey ones, so they don't know about the imported American grey squirrels killing off the native red squirrels. I knew that bit, but didn't know that the greys give the red squirrels a squirrel pox which the greys are immune to.
I tend to call grey squirrels either "American tree rats" or "rats with bushy tails". Did anyone see Countryfile today (BBC1, Sun 8 Feb)? If so, they've had seen an item about rats, which breed rapidly and are eating food crops grown in the UK (This link should take you to this episode of Countryfile on the web (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hk945)).
If the public understood that if rats are eating a lot of the crops grown in the UK, and this will inevitably lead to higher food prices and more food imports, then there might be more awareness of the problem and more attempts to kill rats! If we can get the general public to follow the RSPCA's advice and realise that grey squirrels are as bad as rats, to be treated as vermin, and then more people might also kill grey squirrels?
Also, there was a news story (last week) about Bangladesh's top rat killer (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7874517.stm). In Bangladesh they have such a plague of rats that the government pays people (esp. farmers) for killing rats because the rats are eating so many of the crops. In a time of recession in the UK (with high unemployment), perhaps the UK government could pay people to kill rats. Then, if we get grey squirrels classified as rats, we could have hundreds of rat/squirrel killers attempting to rid this country of disease-ridden rats and the foreign invaders (grey squirrels).

Flanker · Joined: 12 Aug 2009 Posts: 11 Location: WA, USA

The only menace is YOU – the despicable, depraved, deranged mass-murderers of the adorable, valuable gray squirrels!

The only thing all of you murderers deserve for your dastardly deed is one bullet in your subhuman head. It should start with that one of the most loathsome beings on this earth – Paul Parker. That evil piece of garbage doesn’t deserve to be a part of this planet for one minute more!

tit · Joined: 03 Nov 2009 Posts: 1

I think we should wipe out red squirrels so we dont have to have this argument