BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ikw101" data-source="post: 1326024" data-attributes="member: 26920">Well spotted Martin I hope they learn from the mistakes made further south. I trust Jo Ellis has been misquoted !"Jo Ellis, who is heading the programme at Forestry Commission Scotland, said culling greys must not be the only tactic to protect reds."The stronghold approach is an insurance policy in a way," she said. "We don't want them to only live in these places, but it's about trying to give reds places where they can thrive."It doesn't mean we are giving up on grey-squirrel control but if we just try and cull grey squirrels and that doesn't work, then reds will have very little chance."The chosen areas of forests will be heavily planted with conifer trees. Mrs Ellis said: In these forests reds seem to be able to thrive but greys don't go there. :eek!: "They are not interested. They are going to be so unfriendly to a grey squirrel that they won't want to be there." :eek!:The feedback comments are also interesting. Personally I think comment 12 sums it all up rather well.Two agencies, The Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage, and two agendas. Neither agency has as its prime concern the protection of red squirrels.The Forestry Commission wants to continue to do what it likes doing best: ploughing and draining the land and creating dense plantations of exotic conifers. The peril of the red squirrel is a convenient smokescreen for business as usual.Scottish Natural Heritage wants to continue to do the only thing it dares to do: keeping its head down, not causing controversy, not standing up for any aspect of Scotland's natural heritage, not saying boo! to a goose or even a grey squirrel. And if something awful happens, like an apparently successful way of protecting some aspect of our natural heritage that will cause dissent amongst the nincompoops and cuddly animal brigade, then bunker down and call for more research. That is what Mairi Cole is doing, no doubt on instruction from above: the Andrew Thin effect.The awful thing that has happened is this: just two men and an army of enthusiastic volunteers, working with a grant of just £148,000, have in the last year or so killed twenty thousand grey squirrels in Northumberland, where they are now almost eradicated. They are now moving south into County Durham.see:<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/25/conservation" target="_blank">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/25/conservation</a><a href="http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/country-view/Squirrel-cull-could-extend-.4629110.jp" target="_blank">http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/country-view/Squirrel-cull-could-extend-.4629110.jp</a><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/10/easquirrel110.xml" target="_blank">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/10/easquirrel110.xml</a>So, what is SNH's response? To spend nearly ten times as much (£1.3million) over three years "to find out how effective culling grey squirrels is likely to be in the fight to save the reds." In other words, kick the problem into the long grass and do nothing, whilst ensuring the funds keep rolling in. Meanwhile, SNH does not even object to planning applications for housing estates in native pinewood that are the last stronghold of the red squirrel in Scotland.Are you listening, Environment Minister, Mike Russell?You've made a good start in your new(ish) job. For the first time that I can remember we actually seem to have an environment minister who cares about the environment. So, Mr Russell, are you going to pick up SNH by its scrawny chicken's neck and give it a good shake to rid it of its wormtongues (you should know who they are by now) and tell it to start employing people of integrity and courage as well as scientific rigour :-OAnd specifically, are you, Mr Russell, going to throw this pathetic excuse for inaction back in SNH's face and tell it to come up with a plan for the eradication of the grey squirrel from Scotland that takes as read the indubitable success of the Northumberland action?Do that, Mr Russell, and we could be free of this pest in five years. And you would have earned the respect and gratitude of every tufty in the land. As well as a few of their real human friends. :t:</blockquote>

Verification