Almost £2 million secured for red squirrel conservation
Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) has been awarded £1.9 million to continue its vital red squirrel conservation work for another two years.
The partnership project, led by Scottish Wildlife Trust, has been working in Scotland since 2009, protecting and increasing populations of native red squirrels. The funding, which has been awarded through the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot, will allow the project to grow over the next two years by creating two new roles, expanding into new areas and implementing tried and tested methods which give red squirrels the best chance of recovery.
Invasive non-native grey squirrels were introduced from North America to the UK by the Victorians and have since displaced red squirrels in most of England and Wales, with Scotland now home to around 80% of the UK’s population. Greys outcompete red squirrels for food and living space and can carry the squirrelpox virus which does not harm them but is deadly to reds.
SSRS works in three areas in Scotland, where red and grey squirrels come into contact with each other and compete for resources.
- In the North East, the project is close to complete eradication of grey squirrels in Aberdeen. A scent detection dog team have recently joined the effort to identify the locations of any last remaining greys, and to confirm Aberdeen is free of grey squirrels through regular surveying.
- Along the Highland Line, running from Helensburgh to Stonehaven, SSRS has prevented grey squirrel incursions north into the red squirrel-stronghold of the Highlands and Grampians. This has created space for red squirrel populations from the north to expand their range towards the central belt, including throughout the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. A new Community Outreach Officer here will empower and support local communities to champion red squirrel conservation, training volunteer groups to maintain low grey squirrel densities. The increased support from communities will allow SSRS staff to move their monitoring and control efforts further south where grey squirrel density is higher.
- In South Scotland, where grey squirrel incursions from both the north and south are constant, a new Grey Squirrel Control Officer role has been created. This increased capacity, along with ongoing collaboration with the Red Squirrel Forum for South Scotland, the cross-border Red Squirrel Recovery Network project as well as other conservation organisations, will reinforce efforts to protect priority areas of red squirrels in Dumfries & Galloway and the Borders. Here, SSRS will also reinstate testing for squirrelpox, which will provide a greater understanding of the prevalence of this fatal disease and how to tackle it.
The Nature Restoration Fund is vital to what is Scotland’s largest red squirrel conservation project by area, as invasive non-native species control must have long-term and sustainable support to ensure success. SSRS has already made a huge difference for red squirrels and collected over 250,000 squirrel records since 2009. Recent successes include in Aberdeen, where red squirrels are now regularly seen in gardens and urban parks, having returned to the city after being almost completely lost just a few decades ago.
Gail Turney, SSRS Programme Manager at the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said: “We are delighted to receive this funding, which will allow us to progress our work for red squirrels even further over the next two years. Our teams on the ground have already achieved so much, and this next phase of work will allow us to build momentum, enhancing and maintaining our work with the help of local communities and volunteers. Red squirrel conservation has to be done at a large scale, so it’s fantastic to be part of the movement of passionate people working together to protect the future of these special creatures. We are grateful to the Nature Restoration Fund for securing the project for another two years, and allowing us to increase our capacity and hopefully replicate the success we’ve achieved in Aberdeen elsewhere in Scotland! I’m excited to see what the next project phase holds.”