{"id":776610,"date":"2026-09-20T08:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776610\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T08:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:22:09","slug":"when-did-grey-squirrels-start-posing-a-threat-to-reds-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/776610\/","title":{"rendered":"When did grey squirrels start posing a threat to reds in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Paskett, though, thinks there could be an effective additional way to control grey squirrel numbers within the next five years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the Red Squirrel Survival Trust was jointly funding a field trial by the government&#8217;s Animal and Plant Health Agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Beginning &#8220;later this year or early next year&#8221; Paskett said his organisation had &#8220;developed the means to deliver oral contraceptives to grey squirrels using a &#8216;hopper&#8217; which sees the squirrel lift up a lid&#8221; to access them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Because greys typically weigh 500g &#8211; approximately twice that of reds, only they can access the contraceptive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If the field trial is successful, Paskett hopes landowners and forest rangers will be able to sign up to the scheme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For now, though, Foott said shooting and trapping were the main options.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, she said: &#8220;The reintroduction of pine martens can help. Because they are a native species in the UK, they evolved together with red squirrels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They do eat red squirrels but the reds know to quickly get out of their way and will send out the alarm signal to the rest of the colony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The greys are a little bit stupid and will say &#8216;hello, I haven&#8217;t seen you before&#8217; and the pine marten will get them!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paskett, though, thinks there could be an effective additional way to control grey squirrel numbers within the next&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-776610","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\/776610","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=776610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}