On red alert for squirrel survival

Nov 12 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

It’s thought the virus, a skin disease, is spread by contact. Once contracted it kills within three weeks. Swabs are sent off to the vet pathologist to confirm they’ve had the virus.

“Most of the time it’s only too clear what they’ve died of,” says Thom.

“It’s like myxomatosis in rabbits. They have lesions, sores and they go blind. They also start behaving really peculiarly. They spend a lot of time on the ground, and act almost as if they are drunk.”

He’s concerned the disease is being spread via the animals’ drays, which are still in evidence, perfectly spherical and wedged lightly between branches.

Squirrels, Thom explains, are social animals and will happily use each others’ homes.

“Because there’s no formal opening, they just squeeze between the twigs and in doing so are rubbing off infected skin cells, possibly infecting healthy squirrels who use the drays. Inside the dray is also the main contact point.

“We’ve been toying with the idea of taking down drays and replacing them with nest boxes but we’re not sure it would be viable. Most of the stuff we do has to be experimental.”

The dramatic losses have seen volunteer groups swing into action under the banner of Red Squirrel Alert. They’re the life-blood of the campaign to save them.

Thom has corralled their enthusiasm into exercises to scientifically measure trends in population twice a year, borrowing from how ornithologists count ground nesting birds.

The reds’ territory was dissected into 40 or so 100sq m segments and volunteers must take five minutes to walk the distance, then stop for five minutes, jotting down squirrels seen. It’s repeated four times.

WE TRY it at Ainsdale, where the woods are in the process of being made into a more squirrel friendly habitat. It’s harder than it sounds.

“You can usually hear them first,” explains Thom in a hushed voice. But crackles from the pine canopy overhead turn out just to be water.

Although we are treated to the powder blue flash of a jay, we see no squirrels.

Thom’s developing a new method of gauging population changes. Although at the reserve we can see no squirrels, there are signs on the ground some have been here within the last day or two. He shows me shredded pinecones, freshly harvested of their sliver thin nuts. It’s yellow and rich red, just a few days old. “This one’s about two months old, it’s really brown and decayed,” he says. “Volunteers will be assigned a patch of ground and asked to estimate the amount of chewed cones in the area, and tick the number that applies, from none to between 500-700. It’s a good way of getting volunteers looking for diseased squirrels too.”