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Westmorland Red Squirrels


Sciurus
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I thought some of you would be interested in our latest newsletter, it is not all about ourselves, it provides links to conservation in Northumberland and reintroduction of reds to parts of Wales.

Last year, 3940 greys were removed in our area by our volunteers and Local Land owners, even if you are not in a Red Squirrel area, please do your bit and make an extra effort to shoot/trap any greys in your area and add your total to Pigeon Watchs own Grey Squirrels Kills in the Vermin Section.

It would also be great if you could support the petition regarding felling licences.

Have a good Christmas, Sciurus1412461045_9d59a6da-5c6e-405e-9f36-4ee0f03b4f9c1.jpg.25081be80a8f2735962bca0c55d56f3d.jpg

 

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Teal, the thermals are literally a game changer. You can cover a lot of woodland using a thermal and they can also be used to see which dreys or tree hollows are occupied and are very useful for finding fallen game and spent cartridges!

Mice, Around here,  people are very much aware that the population of Reds  decreased once the County was invaded by greys and that grey control is the only practical answer. Red squirrels are also very good for business and tourism and the local Authorities, United Utilities and NT are very much on board and allow us to control on their land. 3940 culled greys is proof of that.

Next month, I will post the final results of this years cull, I suspect it will not be as high as a result of last years success, that does not necessarily mean we are slacking but that we are slowly succeeding and the population of greys are decreasing.

As Walker says ‘Keep whacking and stacking’.

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Nice newsletter sciurus.

 

Do u think the petion/protection for trees felling licences is a good thing??

 

I got a reminder from our own squirrel group about it recently too, I haven't signed it as like many things becomes more about the stick than the carrot, if u own a commercial woodland near felling age which could easily be prime squirrel habitat woudl u encourage them if they could stop ur woods being felled??

It is the same with bats, i own a small woodland and built a good few bat boxes for it when i 1st got it with every intention of encouraging as many as possible (anything that eats midges should be encouraged in my opinion 😀 ) BUT the legal restrications that follow if ur succesful has meant i doubt i'll ever stick them up.

Which to my mind defeats the purpose and is causing more harm. than good

Same goes for many other protected species, a lnature reserve i'm involved with looked at possible re-intro of GC Newts, but the legislative hoops u have to jump throu would mean u couldn't manage the resrve normally without having 'qualified' peopple there all the time.

 

Sorry to be a stick in the mud about the petition but i think its a bit like grey partridge or Black grouse on the quarry list, no one ever really shoots them despite managing habitat for them but if u took them of quarry list that habitat work might stop.

I think for rarer animals to thrive the owner has to WANT them to be there, but he also mst be allowed to work the ground also

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Scotslad

You make a valid point, I think the problem lies that where there is legislation, common sense can go out of the window and if the legislation is too restrictive then it can have the opposite effect of what was originally intended.

Having said that, there is no public money to encourage landowners to consider protected species, so at the moment I cannot see any alternative but to legislate and trust that it is done sensibly. I don’t think it should be used as a stick to beat forestry owners with, but with legislation, landowners would have to come up with a suitable scheme of controlled felling in red squirrel areas when applying for a felling licence. Wholesale felling in such areas is just too irresponsible and destructive.

Are you living in Scotland at the moment? If so, do you know what effect has it had on forestry owners in red squirrel areas?

Cheers Garnet

 

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Totally agree with wot u say Garnet, BUT the massive problem is Common sense, with conservation it is so often thrown out the window if it ever exisited.

Slightly different is scotland as we're just so blaise?sp about Reds, places that have them have loads, which has also been our downfall as greys have sneaked in under the radar and are now almost everywhere in southern scotland, esp the easter/borders side, west coast is hanging on a bit better but still a lot og greys moving in.

 

Like many things really depends on the woods/local area, plenty of big landowners/forestry interests in this area (and scotland as a whole really) so if u cut down some trees they usually can move elswhere quite easily so not really that big a problem.

I would imagine could be quite different down south thou, possibly more areas of smaller 'isolated' woods so being felled in 1 harvest (not mixed age/rotation stands) so if any forester/ecologist ticks the Red squirrel box on felling licence i bet alarm bells will be ringing al throu english nature and english FC offices who issue felling licences.

If u have a small say 10-20 acre wood of single age SS they're really isn't much scope for anything else but clear felling.to make it profitable.

Even if u felled half the wood in 2 stages the 1st stage would never get old enough quick enough to become vaible habitat and the old trees be be either windblown or worthless as over grown/over sized.by the time theyoung trees are a vaible habitat

Reds will move from wood to wood if they have too, or even trap them and move them if no suitable local woods close by

 

I hope it won't be a problem but after being involved with the local bat group years ago who had similar powers, wot a bunch of absolute fruit cakes.

Sadly a lot of conservationists are animal nutters, and often very focussed/blinkered on their favourite species/habitat and don't reallly care wot happens to others as long as they they're animal is ok.

 

Over the past few years i've felled some quite big areas of prime red habitat (acres of mature scots pine, real proper old 1's) in cumbria all in the name of conservation

Bloody scandalous in my opinion and EN was paying for it all, try to restore peatlands, throwing millions at it, complete waste of money but has given me a bit of work so wot can u do??

 

I'm actually quite worried about the scottish red squirel groups at the moment, quite a few studies are showing Pine Martin can increase Reds number and decrease grey's, which is brilliants BUT wot about all the other wildlife??

I can see a widescale release programme of PM in the not to distant future, which i don't think will even help the reds that much (it wonder be th emiracle they expect) but fear the price for every other animal may be too high as PM are prolific hunters

 

 

For me the problem is 100% geys and disease caused by greys so why target habitat loss, probably more suitable red habitat now than there ever has been

So this rule is just an easy fix for a problem that hardly exisits and makes them look like there doing something (typical government/civil service really)

and then the nut job bunny huggers can hit the landowners/foresters, in practice almost like class war/anti shooting again.

 

Just noticed ur in south cumbria been plenty of felling been done down there  (not by me thou but heard the boys on about sites/jobs down there) in the name of peatland restoration, not sure the tree species but almost always mainly Scots Pine and Birch

And all that is government/EU money, bloody millions and millions being spent on it essentially trying to turn back time and stop natural succesion, no reason % of that money could not go into protecting red esp killing greys

Edited by scotslad
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On 14/12/2018 at 15:07, Teal said:

Very good reading, and I really liked the idea of using thermal to identify squirrels easily,.

They are a game changer!

The Pulsars are head and shoulders above the Flir.

On 15/12/2018 at 20:25, scotslad said:

Nice newsletter sciurus.

 

Do u think the petion/protection for trees felling licences is a good thing??

 

I got a reminder from our own squirrel group about it recently too, I haven't signed it as like many things becomes more about the stick than the carrot, if u own a commercial woodland near felling age which could easily be prime squirrel habitat woudl u encourage them if they could stop ur woods being felled??

It is the same with bats, i own a small woodland and built a good few bat boxes for it when i 1st got it with every intention of encouraging as many as possible (anything that eats midges should be encouraged in my opinion 😀 ) BUT the legal restrications that follow if ur succesful has meant i doubt i'll ever stick them up.

Which to my mind defeats the purpose and is causing more harm. than good

Same goes for many other protected species, a lnature reserve i'm involved with looked at possible re-intro of GC Newts, but the legislative hoops u have to jump throu would mean u couldn't manage the resrve normally without having 'qualified' peopple there all the time.

 

Sorry to be a stick in the mud about the petition but i think its a bit like grey partridge or Black grouse on the quarry list, no one ever really shoots them despite managing habitat for them but if u took them of quarry list that habitat work might stop.

I think for rarer animals to thrive the owner has to WANT them to be there, but he also mst be allowed to work the ground also

As I understand it the petition came about because the FC in Wales clear felled a wood with young reds still in their dreys.

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Cheers fisher i never knew that.

 

By right that would be illegal anyway even under the present laws,.same as a BoP (or in theory any nesting bird) trees should be left till birds are finished nesting

 

But and i'm sure no forestry company/landowner would knowing fell a wood while young still in the dreys, but in practice it woud be almost impossible to identify every drey in a woodland, even in small areas it could be easy to miss 1 when u have the pressure of work to survey 'X' ammount of acres/woodlands

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Just come back from center parcs in the lakeland fells this evening. Have visited this site probably 10-12 times over the years and always loads of greys about despite them always hankering on about red squirrel conservation. Have asked a few of the rangers over the years what measures they take in managing the greys and never had a straight answer from them.

Visiting this year for the four days was different from every prior year. I did not see one single grey and was actively looking for them. Was out on the bikes every day and covered plenty of miles around the site which was great, even around the feeding stations for the wild birds which you see plenty of and a  good dollop of pheasants about and we did not see a single one. 

Encouraging and it would appear they have increased their efforts in control significantly. 

I hope they have done the same in the the Nottingham one as that is just Greysville!

 

atb

7diaw

Edited by 7daysinaweek
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12 minutes ago, 7daysinaweek said:

Just come back from center parcs in the lakeland fells this evening. Have visited this site probably 10-12 times over the years and always loads of greys about despite them always hankering on about red squirrel conservation. Have asked a few of the rangers over the years what measures they take in managing the greys and never had a straight answer from them.

Visiting this year for the four days was different from every prior year. I did not see one single grey and was actively looking for them. Was out on the bikes every day and covered plenty of miles around the site which was great, even around the feeding stations for the wild birds which you see plenty of and a  good dollop of pheasants about and we did not see a single one. 

Encouraging and it would appear they have increased their efforts in control significantly. 

I hope they have done the same in the the Nottingham one as that is just Greysville!

 

atb

7diaw

The rangers have been hammering the greys up there, and I'm sure there are reds on site again, think it was mentioned on the grey area page on FB.

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31 minutes ago, Mice! said:

The rangers have been hammering the greys up there, and I'm sure there are reds on site again, think it was mentioned on the grey area page on FB.

Great news K

I did not see any reds this time but have seen them in previous years, in the newsletter for 2018 it gave an estimate of around 150 reds in that single block which the it owns.

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Scotslad, a number of interesting points.

I have an open mind about pine martens but don’t think game keepers and shooting Estates will welcome them. Contraception is another good idea (if they can develop a method to prevent reds taking it) but what happens if it gets into the food chain?

In our area, we have a few small colonies of reds dotted about, they are not numerous and are very vulnerable. In my village of Windermere, we only have 1! As well the danger of pox, they have no road sense and we do lose a few to cars. Luckily most of them are in non commercial woods owned by NT. It does not help that grey control is now very low on  F.C. priority.

Fisher Uk, I agree the Pulsar is much better than the Flir, however our younger volunteers do like the Flir, Either way, thermals make the job so much easier. Thank you for posting the reason for the petition, I didn’t know that.

7 Daysinaweek, Centre Parcs is not in our area, but I always thought that they were very keen on grey control. It’s good to hear that you didn’t spot any.

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I'm sure the petition came about because of trees being felled on Anglesey, I know what Scotslad means people need to be able to work the land but felling in the middle of the breeding season? Apparently they looked for reds but didn't see any? Probably a quick walk through and that was it, I'll try and find a link.

12 minutes ago, 7daysinaweek said:

Great news K

I did not see any reds this time but have seen them in previous years, in the newsletter for 2018 it gave an estimate of around 150 reds in that single block which the it owns.

We went to Lowther castle in October mate, stunning grounds covered by rsrjerry, we only saw one red squirrel late on in the afternoon but more importantly we didn't see any "American grey"

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Cheers for the link Mice.

 

This may sound harsh but where reds are thriving losing 1 drey isn't the end of the world, they are very resiliant and can bounce back very quickly (as has been shown after squirrel pox outbreaks or recolonising previous grey territory after the grey have been trapped to a lower level, recent surveys/study by SWT around Aberdeen)

Depending on the actual age they may well have survived, quick as modern timber harvesters are they do not fell the whole wood overnight (althou it does seem that way) the adults definately would have plenty of time to move to a safe tree.

How many dreys will be predated by pine martins if they were encourage/released?? (And yes dreys would be a target for PM just because the young are red the PM won't walk away without eating them)

 

I don't know how big the block they felled is but to gain a felling licence they will have had to carry out an ecological survey, Yes it should of identified the possibility of reds if not confirming them but in the real world its not always that easy.. Any survey would also be looking for birds BoP, badgers and a host of other animals/plants so it is easy to miss signs overlook something

Infact if any blame is to dished out i'd say Tillhill have the least to worry about, the land owner hid the report and various other bodies who all had access to it failed to flag it up also, surely there are computer program that do that automatically??

 

This is wot i mean about the legislation being too strict, the land owner is really to blame here if he knowingly withheld a red squirrel survey back from his forestry manager, the present law/best practice should of meant they just put off felling till later on in year, really no big drama.

If the new legislation would either stop the felling all together or put such costs on it that the timber is unprofitable wot landowner/forest company is going to sign up for future red squirrel projects??

Or even worse try to discourage or even get rid of the squirrels.

 

Sorry for me the only way to spend money to save reds is spend it on eductation and killng greys, pure and simple.

All the development costs of contraception, how many trappers would that pay for??

Also not a fan of things like that either can scientist truely guarantee it will not affect reds?? I doubt it judging by many many failed drugs causing side effects both agri and medical.

For me contraception same as PM is just any way the bunny huggers can  claim there controlling the greys without getting blood on there hands, sometimes u just need to get ur hands bloody!!

I say bring back the warafin and poison the hell out off anywhere with only greys and create a vacum in the middle so greys aren't always spreading out the way

 

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my phone isn't letting me highlight bits Scotslad, 

PM's for me would suit the FC just fine because they'll eat any squirrels they find regardless of color, especially in their dreys, there was something called a "Fisher" shown on pointless a while ago which looks very like a PM lives in America but is rare and I keep meaning to look it up.

I think your right regarding the time of year felling should take place if there are reds present, and if land owners thought they couldn't harvest the timber then problems could occur.

The red squirrels certainly help tourism but not forestry.

I can't see contraception working either, too costly not 100% coverage, cross species affected.

agree regards killing greys, keeping them away from red areas just for a start, I couldn't believe it when I found out that the reds are pretty much gone up in Arbroath where we used to live.

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