Zak Showell, Manager at Lakeland Wildlife Oasis, in Milnthorpe, argues it is time for action to protect red squirrels

ONE reason I feel fortunate to live in Cumbria is knowing that I share one of the last refuges in the United Kingdom for the striking red squirrel, popularised across the Lake District by author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.

Yet when there’s a rustle in the branches above my head, it won’t be Squirrel Nutkin I see, but inevitably a grey squirrel.

The acrobatic rodent scampering around may look cute, but to me is a threat we must halt, before it condemns to extinction one of our most iconic native species – the red squirrel.

Yet there is fierce debate on how to deal with this well-established (and what many people consider endearing) invader.

Introduced to Britain by Victorian landowners in 1876, the grey squirrel has wreaked severe ecological damage on British woodlands, killing trees, threatening birds, red squirrels and other nut-eating natives, such as dormice.

Prolific breeders with two litters of up to seven kits each a year, grey squirrels do not kill reds; they appear simply more successful in competing for food, including digging up and consuming red squirrels’ buried winter stores.

Greys also introduce new parasites and are unaffected carriers of ‘squirrelpox’, which devastates red squirrel populations.

Easily commandeering territory vacated by reds, the 2.5 million greys have pushed Britain’s remaining 140,000 red squirrels (still falling from an estimated population of three million) to the margins: northern Scotland, parts of Cumbria and Northumberland, plus islands, such as the Isle of Wight.

Our native flora and fauna are being impacted by greater invasions of species and diseases than ever before, like Japanese knotweed and ash dieback. Many, myself included, consider the grey squirrel one of these ‘alien’ invaders.

‘Red Squirrels United’, a campaign supported by more than 30 conservation groups and £3 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, has recruited thousands of volunteers to monitor and control grey squirrel populations by trapping and shooting.

But is culling simply a futile expression of nativist xenophobia?

Is it ever ethical to destroy one species in order to conserve another?

According to some groups the grey squirrel is a victim of circumstance, scapegoated for regional red squirrel population extinctions, which they claim is coincidentally caused by habitat change.

More than 100,000 people have signed an anti-cull petition, citing cruelty and ineffectiveness. Arguments include that culling an area simply allows neighbouring populations to move in, and with less competition for food, even increase grey numbers.

Increased mobility could spread squirrelpox (echoing anti-TB badger cull arguments). Suggested solutions include contraception, but this seems a logistical impossibility.

But, alongside the wider rewilding debate, how ‘natural’ is it to ‘artificially’ assist a struggling species?

Do we ‘ring-fence’ red squirrel populations, such as those airlifted to Tresco in 2012?

Environmentalists like myself shudder to contemplate red squirrels becoming a ‘museum piece’, and I completely support translocations and reintroductions, providing they're done responsibly and scientifically, such as EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) endorse.

This is what we aim for at the Oasis, where we’ve had a red squirrel breeding programme for more than 20 years. In fact, I’m looking out on the finishing touches being put to a brand new, much larger “open” enclosure, which replicates their natural surroundings.

Certainly, this is a debate which needs urgent attention and action.

We cannot presume that the small pockets of reds we have now, will survive unaided, and surely we cannot risk losing from the ecosystem, another iconic British species on our watch.