Squirrelbox is lethal for red squirrels (Image: Getty)
Red squirrels will disappear from England very soon if the government does not fund a vaccine against squirrelbox, it has been warned.
The warning was issued by one of the biggest conservation groups of the . Squirrelpox which is only lethal to red squirrels, is said to have been carried by 70% of non-native grey squirrels.
The English population of the grey squirrels is said to have surged this year, triggered by warmer winters which enable mating pairs to feed and breed throughout the whole year.
Penrith and District Red Squirrel group covers 600 square miles of . Founder, Robert Benson said: “We’re facing a huge surge of grey squirrels.”
Robert Benson founded the group 40 years ago when the first was discovered in the region.
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He added: “We think they are breeding three or four times a year, and having four or five kits each time, leading to a massive expansion in grey squirrel numbers: 15 or 20 young grey squirrels are moving through the countryside [each year], from each breeding pair.”
The conversationist shared that a number of Red Squirrels have been lost from every county in England except Cumbria and Northumberland, explaining that the grey squirrels “out-compete them for food and territory”.
Squirrel protection groups in those regions are in need of urgent help from the government to control the population of grey squirrels. He said: “We are at the coal face. England is under extreme heat, and in due course, Scotland will be threatened in the same way.”
Penrith and District Red Squirrel Group is one of the many groups across Cumbria and Northumberland working to conserve the red squirrel population.
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However, what the groups need is for the government to invest in developing a vaccine against squirrelbox while there is still a “viable population” of red squirrels alive. Robert Benson believes if the government do not intervene soon, “we won’t have red squirrels in England, and probably in the United Kingdom, because Scotland too will go”.
Robert Benson said: “If it wasn’t for the work we do, the red would already have disappeared from this part of the world.”
Squirrelpox being present in the squirrel population causes the disappearance of red squirrels to increase rapidly and the number of grey squirrels to grow up to 25 faster.
He added: “They [grey squirrels] cause damage to property too, by getting into lofts and outhouses, chewing through plumbing and electrics. Yet I’m afraid that the conservation of red squirrels seems to be a low priority for the government.”