Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels has won a Helping It Happen award! It’s not every day you see a red squirrel in the centre of Edinburgh, not least one surrounded by twinkling lights, clinking glasses and the chatter of people in tuxedos and cocktail dresses. It was only a projection, but still the image represented […]
We want to help you get the most out of your Great Scottish Squirrel Survey week and give you the best opportunity possible to see our furry friends out in the wild. Our SSRS Conservation Officers from across the country have come up with a guide of subtle signs, memorable marks and helpful hints to assist you on your adventures over the next few days. […]
We often say that we couldn’t save Scotland’s red squirrels without the hard work and dedication of our volunteers, and we mean it! Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels is a pretty big team. We have 19 full-time members of staff, rising to 27 during the summer months. Whether we’re carrying out grey squirrel control […]
This week is national Invasive Species Week, 13-17 May, which aims to raise awareness across Great Britain about invasive species and their impacts. Being a project all about invasive species, here at the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative, we’re quite excited about having a whole week of lots of people talking about Invasive Species […]
As it’s National Gardening Week we thought we would share some tips on how to make your garden more red squirrel-friendly. By making a few small changes, you could be helping some of your local residents stay bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Have you ever winced as yet another neighbour monoblocks their front garden, or […]
After years of carefully targeted grey squirrel control, we were excited to hear that a red squirrel has been spotted in Luss. It’s a sign that our native reds are beginning to make a comeback on Loch Lomond’s western shores. Luss Estate is a nationally important area for red squirrel conservation because it sits […]
Gala Men’s Shed, part of the Men’s Shed network across Scotland, put their impressive array of tools and woodworking skills to good use in aid of red squirrel conservation. A small team of Shed members made a whopping 83 feeder boxes for Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels’ annual squirrel survey. Saws and screws at […]
Yesterday we published our 2018 squirrel survey report. It concluded that while red squirrel populations are stable in most parts of Scotland, in the south they continue to be threatened by disease and competition from the spread of non-native grey squirrels. Many papers have reported that our survey only detected 59 red squirrels […]
When squirrelpox first arrived in the south of Scotland in 2005, there were fears that the virus would prove devastating to the region’s red squirrels. The project was also concerned that without conservation action the virus would continue to spread north towards Scotland’s core red squirrel populations in the Highlands. Prof Andy White of Heriot-Watt […]
Monitoring Officer Nina Schönberg explains how we use camera traps to survey squirrels in Aberdeenshire, often with entertaining results! On top of our regular hair sample-based surveys, in the North East we also run a camera-trapping survey in specially selected woodlands. Camera Traps (or Trail Cameras) are designed to detect movement and changes in […]
