Sunday 18 July 2010

Fighting Back!

Some heartwarming news reported in the press this week concerning one of England's most endangered mammals the Red Squirrel.
Our true native Squirrel has been a very rare sight in recent years because of the Squirrel Pox virus which is carried by the non-native and now far more widespread American Grey Squirrel and is confined to only a handful of locations in the north of the country.

One of those locations is Formby Point on Merseyside and I told you back in February about the desperate plight of the species there and at the time the situation look very bad indeed.

Well I'm very pleased to say, that I and many others underestimated our Reds and these little beauties are staging what can only be described as a miraculous comeback at Formby.
Numbers dropped from around 1000 to only 100 or so Squirrels in 2008, but a culling of Greys and the quarantining of infected Reds has seen the Formby population double in the last two years.

There's also good news for Welsh Reds as well, with the population booming on Angelsey and the Greys now all but extinct on the Island.

6 comments:

  1. That is really good news about Red Squirrel Anthony. I hadn't realised they had made such a recovery in the Formby area.

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  2. We spent a week watching the lovely little red squirrels at Center Parcs in the Lake District. It was the first time any of us had seen a red squirrel and were amazed at how different they were from the greys. Very resourceful, impish little creatures, I have every faith they ll make a comenback. Come on you reds!!

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  3. I like coming here because in addition to seeing beautiful pictures, I can read interesting news ...

    Thanks for sharing.

    Kisses and a great Sunday!

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  4. Glad to read those good news of this nice little guy ! And I hope it will get even much better in the next years :)
    So you will catch plenty of other beautiful pictures like this one ;)

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  5. This is great news! I had heard they were all gone in Formby, so it's good to hear they are still hanging in there.

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  6. Great News indeed and hopefully they'll continue to do well.
    Thanks very much everyone.

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