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Don�t demonise the grey squirrel 10 June 2004 ~ 23:44 Most people in this country, not only naturalists, know about the struggles that the native British red squirrel has faced against the �onslaught� of the grey squirrel.But that does not give anyone the right to inaccurately label the grey squirrel as �nasty.� On a current program sponsored by BBC2, Britain Goes Wild, they focused on the leader of a movement to promote red squirrels by defeating�capturing, and I can only guess killing�the grey squirrel. The pro-red squirrel leader referred to the greys as a �nasty animal.� This is so entirely wrong-headed. True enough, the red squirrel has been beaten back by the more competitive grey squirrel, and has contracted disease from the greys. However, let�s put this in perspective: A Victorian-era Lord brought back two grey squirrels from America to provide amusement for himself in his back garden. Not surprisingly, the squirrels reproduced, causing the squirrels to become firmly established in England, present by the tens of thousands, by the 1930s. Today, the grey squirrel is ten times more likely to be seen than the native red squirrel. To the anti-grey squirrel naturalists, I would just like to ask, how is it the grey squirrel�s fault that it has only done in England exactly what it does on the American continent where it is from? The squirrels in question never requested to come to England. The fact that a fellow from the Victorian age brought two squirrels back to England to romp in his garden by no means places the squirrels at fault. They did what came entirely natural to them and found astonishing success in establishing a home for itself 3,000 miles away from their native land. I adore our native red squirrel and want its numbers to increase. I hope it survives in sufficient numbers as to never become extinct, at least not in the British Isles. That would be a tragedy. But to paint the grey squirrel as some sort of consciously sinister foreign and barbaric invader is not only a gross misrepresentation of the grey squirrel in England, but a histrionic and untruthful one. Grey squirrels are established and officially recognized as an English species of animal. In our concern for the daintier red squirrel, let�s not demonise its transatlantic cousin, the grey squirrel.
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