{"id":808402,"date":"2026-10-20T07:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808402\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T07:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:58:09","slug":"endangered-red-squirrels-thriving-on-british-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808402\/","title":{"rendered":"Endangered red squirrels thriving on British island"},"content":{"rendered":"

With growing concerns that red squirrels could soon become extinct in England<\/a>, one Channel Island is a corner of the British Isles where they maintain a stronghold.<\/p>\n

Jersey is home to a thriving red squirrel population, thanks to the complete absence of grey squirrels, which carry a virus deadly to their red cousins.<\/p>\n

Red squirrels are endangered in the UK<\/a>, with about 120,000 to 160,000 left in the wild and various projects are aiming to boost those numbers.<\/p>\n

There have some strongholds in England, external<\/a>, particularly islands, and 75% of the British population is in Scotland, external<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, despite not being native to Jersey, Henry Glynn, an ecologist with the National Trust of Jersey, said they “really are iconic for Jersey”.<\/p>\n

He said: “When you speak to people who have come over to visit the island from the UK, a lot of them will say that one of the things they want to do whilst here is to see a red squirrel, because they’re so rare and so difficult to see in large parts of the UK.<\/p>\n

“That is actually really special for them.”<\/p>\n

Red squirrels are not native to Jersey, having been introduced in 1885. <\/p>\n

However, Glynn described them as “naturalised”, having become “assimilated into the natural environment” over many years.<\/p>\n

The animals have previously featured in Visit Jersey, external<\/a> tourism campaigns, including one fronted by conservationist Ben Fogle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With growing concerns that red squirrels could soon become extinct in England, one Channel Island is a corner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-808402","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\/808402","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=808402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}