RED SQUIRRELS

The Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) is found throughout Europe and even as far as eastern Russia. Our native red squirrel was once widespread throughout Britain before the Victorians introduced the non-native invasive grey squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis) from north America. Following their introduction in the late 1800’s, our red squirrels started to rapidly disappear falling foul of the Squirrel Pox Virus. This is a disease carried by grey squirrels but they are not susceptible to it. Sadly, even today our native red squirrels are still very much under threat from catching this disease from the non-native grey squirrel along with the great threat to the their loss of habitat due to many woods and forests being felled to accommodate human population growth.

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