Saving Squirrels

One of Britain’s best-loved animals, the red squirrel is being driven back to its Highland heartlands by the slow advance of its grey cousin. We visit a Perthshire farm where naturalist Polly Pullar is doing her best to save the red

- By Richard Baynes. Photographs by NaturePL.com, Alamy, Polly Pullar

The sharp frost is slowly loosening its grip, but there is still ice on the bracken. From a chilly seat in a hide in the woods above Aberfoyle, right on the Highland boundary, I see the flicker of a bushy brown tail.

Then a pert face, jaws rapidly chomping, pops up above a log in the clearing. The red squirrel looks directly towards me, then quickly twists away. Its rich chestnut fur undulates as the flexible body races across the ground and up a pine tree.

I never tire of seeing squirrels here in Stirlingshire, especially in winter when they are a warm breath of life, but I am lucky to have them on my doorstep. There are just 160,000 red squirrels now in the UK. South of the Scottish border, reds are now relegated to a few pockets as introduced American grey squirrels have taken over. Most of them – perhaps 120,000 – are in Scotland. They are doing well in the Highlands, mainly in the east, and in south-west Scotland there are good populations. But all face pressure from the bigger greys, which out-compete them for food, and carry – but don’t suffer from – squirrelpox, which is fatal to reds.

Efforts to help reds in Scotland are showing positive results: the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project (SSRS) has restored them to much of the woodland just south of the Highland Line, with a programme of grey ‘control’ – the grim task of culling. The same method is helping to steady populations in southern Scotland.