U.S. squirrels pushing relatives out of Britain







Yahoo! Buzz Digg Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Across northern England and Scotland, a do-or-die battle is being waged against an aggressive American invader.
Britons are desperately trying to stem a northern march by the American gray squirrel, which threatens Britain's native red squirrel by destroying its habitat and spreading disease.

The situation is so dire that the government and wildlife groups have called trappers and hunters, scientists, Prince Charles — and even chefs with squirrel recipes — into a campaign against the grays. They've created sanctuaries for the red squirrels and enlisted volunteer spotters to look out for the destructive invader.

"We must act," Scotland's environment minister, Michael Russell, warned last week as he announced a three-year, $2.16 million program to try to halt the grays.

"The red is now endangered. We have only a short time to save the red squirrel from the brink of extinction," he says.Red squirrels will disappear in 10 to 15 years if nothing is done, says Rachel Walton, a wildlife officer with Save Our Squirrels, or SoS, one of more than 50 groups involved in the fight and supported by Prince Charles.

"We've got to be very aggressive in protecting them," she says. "We don't have much time left."

The British have their forebears to blame for the situation.

Miles Barne, chairman of the London-based European Squirrel Initiative, says Victorians brought the American gray species to England in 1876. Scots brought them over as a novelty shortly thereafter.

"The Victorians thought they would be a nice addition to their forests," he says.

Wrong. The gray squirrel, which is almost double the size of the native red squirrel, turned out to be hearty and lethal.

"They're great big bully boys," Barne says of the gray squirrels. "Reds are different. The red is a nervous creature and becomes terrorized by their (grays') aggression."

The gray squirrel wins out in the competition for food and habitat, he says. Grays can eat unripe nuts and berries; the reds cannot digest those until they're ripe. That leaves little food for the red squirrels.

Worse, though, is a squirrel pox carried by the grays brought to England. It doesn't harm the gray squirrel but is lethal to the red squirrel. The disease has wiped out the red squirrels in southern and central England and threatens the remaining reds in three counties that border Scotland and Scotland itself.

About 120,000 red squirrels remain, and 75% of them are in Scotland, SoS estimates. In comparison, the grays number 2.5 million to 5 million.

Although scientists are working on a vaccine to immunize red squirrels against the pox, Walton says that's 10 years away and "could be too late."

Likewise, development of a contraceptive that could be put out as bait for gray squirrels to halt their breeding "is tricky," she says. Any contraceptive or baiting could be eaten by the reds. "We're not advocating a massive cull across Britain," Walton says, "only in areas or buffer zones where there are reds."

The groups and volunteers monitor for any incursion by the gray squirrel into the buffer zones and preserves that have been created. When a gray is spotted there, the call goes out to trappers and hunters.

They're finding a market for the grays.

Simon Spiller, owner of the Otterton Mill restaurant in Devon, in southwest England, added gray squirrel to his menu — to draw attention to the plight of red squirrels and to reintroduce Britons to squirrel meat.

Among the recipes: Colonial Squirrel Kebab, and Squirrel and Leek Fricasee.

"It's halfway between wild boar and pheasant," Spiller says of the taste. "It's got lower fat and higher mineral content. It's also affordable."

Spiller launched "Squirrel Direct," a service to deliver gray squirrel meat throughout the country. The price: about $7.50 per squirrel wholesale; $12 retail, skinned or unskinned.

Celebrity British chef Heston Blumenthal was one of his customers and plans a squirrel recipe for his TV series next year, Spiller says.

"We don't have anything against the American squirrel," Spiller says. "We're just trying to protect the red squirrel and highlight the benefit of eating game."

There's more at stake in protecting the red than just holding onto an animal that has been here since the Ice Age, Walton says.

"We'd be losing an icon," she says.

Red squirrels hold a special place in Britons' hearts, since children's author Beatrix Potter wrote The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin in 1903.

In the book — Potter's second after The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin is threatened by an old owl that plans to skin him. Nutkin survives, but barely. He loses much of his tail.

Britons such as Walton hope the country's remaining reds are as lucky and survive, too.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Is it true they're selling the Red Squirrel blankets infected with smallpox?