{"id":647608,"date":"2026-06-19T18:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T18:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/647608\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T18:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T18:29:08","slug":"squirrelpox-warning-after-sick-red-squirrels-spotted-in-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/647608\/","title":{"rendered":"Squirrelpox warning after sick red squirrels spotted in Dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wildlife charities have warned of potential cases of squirrelpox after receiving multiple reports of sick red squirrels in Dollar, Clackmannanshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The highly contagious virus is often carried by grey squirrels, but is deadly only to reds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Symptoms include ulcers, scabs and weeping lesions on the face, paws and genitalia, all of which can prevent reds from eating, drinking or moving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Post mortem results are the only way to confirm squirrelpox. It is usually fatal within two weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Infected squirrels could appear quite lethargic, possibly remaining stationary for long periods of time and be easy to approach. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Experts at Saving Scotland&#8217;s Red Squirrels and the Eastern Lowlands Red Squirrel Group said it was &#8220;highly likely&#8221; the sick red squirrels had the disease, based on video evidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">People have been urged to take down any wildlife feeders in their gardens\u202f for the next two weeks and send any dead red squirrels found to the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wildlife charities have warned of potential cases of squirrelpox after receiving multiple reports of sick red squirrels in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-647608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}