The Red Squirrel: Soon to be Extinct in UK?
I’ve yet to see a red squirrel in the wild. Such is this animal’s continued population freefall that I may never see one. Full stop. Though once a common site down in the south of England, now it is mainly in the north and in Scotland that it survives.
It’s been a native of the British Isles for 10,000 years now, yet the naivety of the Victorian era threatens this creature with extinction.
In 1876, one Mr Brocklehurst, formally of Cheshire, in the north of England, now turning in his grave, decided it was a good idea to release a pair of North American grey squirrels into the wild. The rest, as they say, is history.
