![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759916348_923_grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"Julie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/c4aa2800-a5fd-11f0-9de9-634bcd03313f.jpg.webp.webp\")
Julie Bailey\/UKSA<\/p>\nJulie Bailey\/UKSA<\/p>\n
Sixteen red squirrels have been confirmed as part of the colony<\/p>\n
Conservationists have hailed the “super-exciting” success of a rare colony of red squirrels discovered on a tree plantation in North Yorkshire.<\/p>\n
The animals were first identified in January, in a sitka spruce plantation in the western Yorkshire Dales, by Julie Bailey from the UK Squirrel Accord (UKSA), a partnership of forestry and conservation organisations.<\/p>\n
Since then, volunteers, conservationists and landowners have worked to monitor and protect the colony.<\/p>\n
Ms Bailey confirmed that 16 red squirrels had now been spotted, and said: “I’m very encouraged by the squirrels’ persistence and breeding success.”<\/p>\n
“We’re now finding evidence of new squirrels in all directions from the plantation,” she said.<\/p>\n
“They’ve been spotted up to six miles away.”<\/p>\n
The Yorkshire Dales Red Squirrel Alliance, formed earlier this year, now has more than 40 active volunteers.<\/p>\n
Their work includes maintaining feeders in areas where natural food is scarce, monitoring squirrel movements and managing the population of non-native grey squirrels.<\/p>\n
But Ms Bailey insisted that everyone had a role to play when it came to protecting red squirrels.<\/p>\n
“When people are walking in woodlands and spot a squirrel, it’s vital they report the sighting,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It helps us track population densities and stay vigilant about any greys.”<\/p>\n
She also urged people not to interfere with red squirrels.<\/p>\n
“It is absolutely essential that the public don’t encourage the hand feeding of squirrels – it does happen occasionally and is very detrimental. <\/p>\n
“It makes red squirrels tame and it puts them at greater risk of disease transmission.”<\/p>\n
![\"Julie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/79079e60-a5ed-11f0-b741-177e3e2c2fc7.png.webp.webp\")
Julie Bailey\/UKSA<\/p>\n
There are thought to be fewer than 40,000 red squirrels left in England<\/p>\n
Sightings of red squirrels have now been reported near the West Yorkshire border, prompting the UKSA to encourage the formation of new local alliances to monitor populations.<\/p>\n
“We just want red squirrels everywhere in the natural environment – healthy, wild and free,” Ms Bailey said.<\/p>\n
She also urged landowners to get involved, saying: “The more land access we have, the more squirrel range and sightings we can document.”<\/p>\n
Preliminary surveys suggest the squirrels are exploring new areas of the forest, with activity recorded near the plantation’s northern boundary.<\/p>\n
Red squirrels are native to the UK but have been pushed to the brink of extinction by the spread of grey squirrels. <\/p>\n
There are thought to be fewer than 40,000 red squirrels left in England.<\/p>\n
The UKSA hopes the success in North Yorkshire can serve as a model for similar conservation efforts across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julie Bailey\/UKSA Sixteen red squirrels have been confirmed as part of the colony Conservationists have hailed the “super-exciting”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-208155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}