Red squirrels have expanded their range across the Highlands by more than a quarter after a 10-year reintroduction programme moved hundreds to new homes.<\/p>\n
The species once came close to extinction in Britain when foresters killed them as pests and their natural habitat was destroyed. A deadly virus carried by invasive grey squirrels has hampered their recovery.<\/p>\n
Scotland is the red\u2019s heartland, home to 80% of the UK\u2019s population of about 200,000. The reintroduction project, run by the rewilding charity Trees for Life, has established more than a dozen thriving new sites, from Ullapool to Morvern to Lairg.<\/p>\n
Becky Priestley, a project manager at Trees for Life, said: \u201cThis rewilding success story is offering hope for the long-term survival of Scotland\u2019s much-loved red squirrels, and shows how we can make a real and positive difference to our native wildlife.\u201d<\/p>\n
The charity intends to expand the species\u2019 range further as part of its Missing Species programme<\/a> for the Highlands, which also aims to bring back three of Scotland\u2019s keystone animals: the lynx, beavers and a modern-day equivalent of aurochs, the original wild cattle.<\/p>\n A northern lynx at the Highland wildlife park in Kingussie, Scotland. Photograph: Ann and Steve Toon\/Alamy<\/p>\n The licensed red squirrel reintroductions each move small numbers of animals from healthy populations around Inverness-shire, Moray and Strathspey to suitable woods in the north and north-west, where they are safe from greys. Red squirrels cannot reach these havens without help because they fear crossing large open spaces.<\/p>\n The squirrels are given a health check before being moved, and different donor sites are used to ensure genetic diversity. Once in their new homes, they are given extra food for a few months to help them settle.<\/p>\n Before the reintroductions, the reds were missing from most of their former range in the north and north-west Highlands, with the last recorded sightings generally from the 1970s.<\/p>\n Once in their new homes, the red squirrels are given supplementary food to help them settle. Photograph: Chris Aldridge<\/p>\n The squirrel reintroductions could help forests naturally expand because reds plant new trees by forgetting where they have buried some of their winter stores of nuts and seeds.<\/p>\n The Animal and Plant Health Agency announced a breakthrough in the battle against grey squirrels in September after an oral contraceptive<\/a> freely eaten in bait by rats was shown to be effective. The contraceptive also caused a reaction in greys, and researchers are refining the formula to increase its effectiveness.<\/p>\n Conservationists warned in 2024 that squirrel pox could wipe out reds<\/a> in England. However, an isolated population of about 3,500 is thriving on the Isle of Wight<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red squirrels have expanded their range across the Highlands by more than a quarter after a 10-year reintroduction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":{"0":"post-170804","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}