RED squirrel populations in the Borders are being surveyed to help ensure their long-term survival.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust has been organising the surveys in Craik Forest near Hawick using tubes which take samples of the animals’ hair.
The plastic tubes contain a removable block which is covered in double-sided tape. Animals are encouraged
into the tubes with food and leave behind some hairs on the sticky block. The hairs are then analysed to determine whether red or grey squirrels are present in the survey area and then the distributions of the two species are mapped to support the future protection of the red squirrels.
Craik Forest is a large conifer plantation and is less attractive for grey squirrels, so the Trust is hoping that the red squirrel populations can be conserved there.
The red squirrel was once widespread throughout Britain, but a viral disease in the early 1900s and the introduction of grey squirrels caused a decline in the south of England which gradually spread north.
Although now extinct in many parts of England, numbers have been increasing in Scotland thanks to extensive planting of conifers for timber, which has caused the expansion of its habitat.
The full article contains 218 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
