Remote volunteers use CCTV to save red squirrels
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- Upper Coquetdale Red Squirrel Group (UCRSG) received an £18,000 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to purchase 50 motion-activated CCTV cameras for installation in the most remote parts of Northumberland.
- The 'virtual ranger' project will recruit community volunteers to monitor live footage remotely and map red squirrel populations over a two-year period, with the data used to detect threats from invading greys early.
- UCRSG chair Ian Glendinning said the setup is designed to include older residents with limited mobility who 'expressed a passionate desire to help' at community presentations, calling them 'wildlife defenders.'
- Grey squirrels, classified as an invasive non-native species originally from North America, carry a pox harmless to them but fatal to reds — and it is not illegal to kill greys humanely in England.
- Rothbury councillor Steven Bridgett said the project puts the local community 'at the heart of conservation' and will produce data enabling strategic conservation measures 'directed at areas most in need.'
- Volunteers only need a mobile phone to take part, do not have to live in the area, and can share the best wildlife clips online so housebound residents can experience Coquetdale's woodland.
Why it matters: With England's red squirrel population described as close to extinction, the 50-camera two-year project gives UCRSG its first systematic early-warning system against grey incursion in remote Coquetdale, while the phone-only, no-residency requirement turns conservation into a task that physically isolated people can actually do from home.
