🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 10:26:51 +0100, "BAC" <casswalk@NOSPAMdircon.co.uk>
wrote:

>
>"Nick Maclaren" <nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message 
>news:g2hjcn$qn5$1@gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk...
>>
>> In article <1212954610.4349.0@proxy00.news.clara.net>,
>> "BAC" <casswalk@NOSPAMdircon.co.uk> writes:
>> |> "Old Codger" <oldcodger@anyoldwhere.net> wrote in message
>> |> news:at9o4411t6g5k411q4ft1unt7fe1eb9ktn@4ax.com...
>> |> > On Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:37:56 +0100, amacmil304@aol.com wrote:
>> |> >
>> |> >>Squirrel Propaganda
>> |> >>
>> |> >>The ongoing campaign against grey squirrels is grossly unfair and
>> |> >>doesn't stack up factually.
>> |> >
>> |> > Nick Maclaren once stated the greys we naturalized natives.
>> |>
>> |> If Nick meant that the UK population of grey squirrels had become
>> |> naturalised, in the same way that many populations of non-indigenous
>> |> flora and fauna are, e.g. rabbits, then he was undoubtedly correct.
>>
>> It's somewhat hard to deny!
>>
>> I have no great truck with the 'native'/'introduced' distinction as
>> applied to the UK, as it doesn't make much scientific or historical
>> sense, but the fact remains that grey squirrels are a very recent
>> introduction, and a threat to several other, well-established UK
>> species and even ecologies; and so a campaign of control (or even,
>> dare we say it, elimination) is justified on ecological grounds.
>>
>
>To which well-established UK species (other than the remaining remnants of 
>the red squirrel population) and ecologies are grey squirrels considered a 
>threat?
>
>> However, whether that is feasible is another matter.
>>
>
>I doubt whether elimination would be feasible. The 'free cartridge' squirrel 
>clubs and bounties of the 1940s and 50s apparently had little effect,

It did on the reds!

> 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. 
>