Black squirrels

As I’ve just mentioned in the Taproom, I’ve now seen one of these black squirrels in my own garden for the first time! The first of many sightings, I imagine. The greys are still around, so it’ll be intriguing to see how long it takes them to start interbreeding. Or maybe there’ll be a turf-war!

I have to say, their black or dark brown colouring does make them more interesting than the greys. It’s like seeing a new animal.

Wow, I envy you. There haven’t been red squirrels in my part of the country for decades. They’re only found in the west and north these days. All we have round here are the grey North American blighters – and now the black (or dark brown) hybrid variety.

The greys are entetaining to watch, especially when they’re trying to get at the nuts in the bird-feeders, but they’re a plague and nuisance to live with. They eat through the roof timbers and electricity cables at every opportunity (but only once if they try to eat a live cable….). They ate right through the batons supporting the tiles in the garage roof once and that portion of the roof caved in! They’ve chewed through the gutters more than once, and they used to gnaw at the lead window flashing, presumably to wear down their teeth.

One year they raised a brood of youngsters in the attic of the house. I had to try and catch them and “encourage” them to go somewhere else (actually illegal, because they’re deemed vermin here and its illegal to capture them and release them elsewhere, or even to handle them). Reds, on the other hand, are protected by law, but are found only in more remote rural areas.

You live in a part of Europe that has, as yet, not been invaded by the advancing grey horde as it marches north from Italy….

I’m serving roasted grey squirrel this morning. How many do you want?

To be political for a moment, I notice in the newspapers today that the grey squirrel story has moved on:

“Politicians from the European Union have introduced a new law obliging the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy to organise the killing of hundreds of thousands of grey squirrels, every year from 2016, using methods that include poisoning, bludgeoning to death or trapping and shooting. This horrid and inhumane ‘programme’ is to be sponsored from the money of taxpayers from all EU countries.”

This is a typical bit of whimsical government manoeuvering to give their landowning pals lots of money (in the UK £100 per hectare of land!! – that’s a helluva lot of dosh) under the excuse that the grey squirrels are damaging woodland. This argument would be more convincing if red squirrels hadn’t been culled within living memory in response to exactly the same dubious claims that they were doing the same thing!

It would obviously have been better if the same element of society (i.e. politicians and rich gits) had never introduced grey squirrels in the first place, but it’s overly late to to shut the gate after the horse has bolted, as an old Bree expression would say. The little grey buggers have been here a long, long tiime and now constitute an indigenous species.

If any of you think the cull as potentially cruel as I do, then you can sign the petition opposing it:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/takeaction/723/774/674/?z00m=27223698&redirectID=1900205497

Good man.

You’re quite right, Master Maenas. These poor creatures never asked to be here in the first place.

At the moment our government here is culling badgers too, for no better reason than that they catch TB from the cattle. The reason the cattle have TB is because our farmers are too incompetent and lazy to ensure their herds are checked and innoculated regularly. The badgers are therefore being made the scapegoat by the farmers, despite the fact that science has repeatedly proved that they’re not the prime culprits. B**tards.