When did grey squirrels start posing a threat to reds? — SkimNews
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- Red squirrel populations have collapsed from about 3.5 million to less than 300,000 in the UK since grey squirrels arrived, with the Woodland Trust estimating only 39,000 remain in England and the Save Our Reds campaign putting the figure as low as 15,000.
- Thomas V. Brocklehurst, a Victorian banker, released a pair of grey squirrels into Henbury Park near Macclesfield, Cheshire, around 1876 after bringing them back from a US business trip — the first verifiable importation of the species into the UK.
- Grey squirrels now number between 2.5 million and 2.7 million in the UK, according to Graham Paskett of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, and cause at least £40m in annual damage to forests and forestry services.
- Jackie Foott of the British Red Squirrel conservation group told the BBC that greys outcompete reds for habitat and food and carry squirrel pox, which is fatal to reds, making coexistence impossible.
- The Red Squirrel Survival Trust is jointly funding a government field trial — starting later this year or early next — of an oral contraceptive delivered via a hopper that only greys (~500g, twice the weight of reds) can physically access.
- Pine marten reintroduction is cited as a complementary control method, with the native predator disproportionately catching greys because reds recognize the threat and sound alarms while greys "say hello" to their predator.
Why it matters: The Red Squirrel Survival Trust's contraceptive hopper trial, launching later this year or early next, offers the first species-specific, non-lethal alternative to shooting and trapping — a tool lethal control never provided. With English red populations as low as 15,000, even partial success would mark a turning point for conservationists who have lacked a scalable intervention for 150 years.
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