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Back in February and March, Becky and her volunteers reintroduced squirrels to the Ardtornish Estate on the Morvern peninsula. 17 squirrels were rehomed in the estate’s mixed woodland before lockdown put a stop to the translocations. Since then there have been multiple sightings, and a few kittens (squirrel young) have even been spotted, meaning the population is growing already.
Similar success has been seen at Woodland Trust Scotland’s Ledmore and Migdale Woods near Bonar Bridge, where 20 squirrels were released in autumn 2019. Local people there have spotted several kittens, and adult squirrels have been seen in nearby woodlands too.
Another of our release sites, Woodland Trust Scotland’s Ben Shieldaig Estate, has seen squirrels breed and spread rapidly from the initial release sites to woodlands over 12 kilometres away. Trees for Life are working with Woodland Trust Scotland on a red squirrel monitoring programme for the estate and surrounding area, where we’ll be training up local volunteers to get involved with surveying for red squirrels. The data they gather will be invaluable in helping us to learn more about squirrel behaviour after translocation, including population growth and spread. If you live near one of our translocation sites and are interested in getting involved in monitoring, please get in touch.
In other squirrel news, the Big Scottish Squirrel Survey, a week of citizen science organised by Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels, was held in September. SSRS is an organisation working to safeguard the future of the native red squirrel in Scotland. Red squirrels have declined dramatically across the UK in the last century, due to persecution, habitat loss and fragmentation, and the introduction of the grey squirrel from the United States. Grey squirrels were introduced by the Victorians in the late 1800s and rapidly spread across the UK, wiping out red squirrels with the spread of squirrel parapoxvirus which is harmless to greys but deadly to reds. The Big Scottish Squirrel Survey is a chance for anyone to do some citizen science and help protect red squirrels, simply by looking out for squirrels, red or grey, when out and about, and logging sightings on the SSRS website.
The Big Scottish Survey Week may have passed but you can log sightings of red and grey squirrels all year round by going to www.scottishsquirrels.org.uk and help organisations like SSRS and Trees for Life protect red squirrels across Scotland.
Our Reds Return project is funded by the People's Trust for Endangered Species, EOCA and the Heritage Emergency Fund.