🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1213003691.25996.0@proxy00.news.clara.net>,
"BAC" <casswalk@NOSPAMdircon.co.uk> writes:
|> 
|> To which well-established UK species (other than the remaining remnants of 
|> the red squirrel population) and ecologies are grey squirrels considered a 
|> threat?

Hazel, dormouse and possibly others.

One point is that large numbers of grey squirrels (and they have no
natural predators of consequence in the UK) take most of the hazel
nuts before they are ripe.  This has been claimed to threaten the
existence of the remaining hazel woods, and even hazel as a common
shrub in some areas.

The other is that, by taking most of the hazel nuts and similar foods,
they prevent dormice fattening themselves adequately for the winter.
Dormice are, after all, ecologically closer to small squirrels than
mice.

It is possible that similar effects may apply to other species, and
there is also the point that grey squirrels are the only common UK
arboreal mammal that regularly eats bird's eggs.  Birds that make
nests out of reach of cats are still vulnerable to grey squirrels;
whether that is a significant threat to any species, I don't know.

|> I doubt whether elimination would be feasible. The 'free cartridge' squirrel 
|> clubs and bounties of the 1940s and 50s apparently had little effect, and 
|> the current population is so widespread and numerous that the scale of the 
|> task would be unjustifiable, especially in view of the opposition it would 
|> encounter. 

Agreed.  Personally, I think that we need beech martens, but there
is not much more chance of that :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.