Meeting of the Parliament 08 November 2016
I am delighted to be the species champion for the red squirrel, which is the United Kingdom’s only native squirrel. Numbers have declined rapidly since the introduction in the 19th century of grey squirrels from North America. Greys have replaced the native reds in much of the UK, because they compete for food and habitat and transmit the deadly squirrel pox virus. Action to protect the reds from the greys through population control is therefore necessary.
The saving Scotland’s red squirrels programme aims to sustain populations of reds across the current red-only range, north of the grey squirrel distribution, and in the central Lowlands and key areas of south Scotland. The project partners are the Scottish Wildlife Trust, SNH, Forestry Commission Scotland, RSPB Scotland, Scottish Land & Estates and the Red Squirrel Survival Trust.
In my constituency, 40 red squirrels were released at Dundonnell estate. Some managed to migrate towards Ullapool and, at the end of 2015, they were being seen around cottages 3 miles south of Ullapool. Sadly, some are being killed on the roads. In light of that, BEAR Scotland was approached to ask whether squirrel signs could be erected. BEAR said that it was considering putting up signs, but there was a consultation process, which went on for months. The community decided to take matters into its own hands and put up two signs either side of Leckmelm garden, but one of those was on a council road sign and BEAR came and took it away.
As members will imagine, that upset the locals, especially the children, so they decided to make their own signs, which got great publicity in the press and on social media. That resulted in the intervention by the then transport minister, and signs were eventually put up.
As a lot of the traffic comes from the Stornoway ferry, people also approached CalMac Ferries, which allowed the kids to go on board a ferry, meet the captain and put up signs to warn people from the ferry to drive carefully when they saw squirrels. That has had a positive effect, as there have been more babies this year but, sadly, six have been reported dead on the roads in the past few weeks. In fact, there might be even more dead, as they are often driven over and destroyed before being identified or reported.
I have supported appeals to BEAR Scotland and Transport Scotland, and we await a meeting with staff to look at putting up a road bridge that the squirrels might use. The hope is that that will minimise fatalities at Leckmelm, and it can perhaps be tried on other roads around Ullapool as squirrel numbers rise.
I ask BEAR Scotland, Transport Scotland and Mr Yousaf, if they are listening, to please help us—and all the other volunteers who are so committed to the project—to save our squirrels.
17:20