there seemed to be no end to articles about them, then not a mention till this one, it appears that in the early 1900's a club was formed to hunt red squirrels, which now days are endangered, by 1946, the Highland Squirrel Club had killed 102,900 squirrels and paid out £1,504 in bounties, tails were submitted as proof of kills, there are several ironies in the story of the club, which was formed in 1903,
reds were extinct, or on the brink of extinction, in the Highlands by the 1800s because of a loss of woodland habitat, in 1844, Lady Lovat of Beaufort Estate near Beauly, succeeded in getting the government to re-introduce the squirrels to the Highlands,
by the 1900s, the squirrels had spread from the boundaries of the estates where they were released and were blamed for causing damage to Scots pine and other conifers, the garden novelty had become a menace threatening thousands of acres of plantations, so the cull begun, ironically, Beaufort Estate was where the most reds were killed - a total of 22,766, in a final irony, 63 years after the end of the Highland Squirrel Club, the same estates where reds were actively hunted down now offer a haven for the species.
Thursday 30 April 2009
When I First Started Our Blog Squirrels Seemed To Be In The News,
black, brown, grey, albino,
there seemed to be no end to articles about them, then not a mention till this one, it appears that in the early 1900's a club was formed to hunt red squirrels, which now days are endangered, by 1946, the Highland Squirrel Club had killed 102,900 squirrels and paid out £1,504 in bounties, tails were submitted as proof of kills, there are several ironies in the story of the club, which was formed in 1903,
reds were extinct, or on the brink of extinction, in the Highlands by the 1800s because of a loss of woodland habitat, in 1844, Lady Lovat of Beaufort Estate near Beauly, succeeded in getting the government to re-introduce the squirrels to the Highlands,
by the 1900s, the squirrels had spread from the boundaries of the estates where they were released and were blamed for causing damage to Scots pine and other conifers, the garden novelty had become a menace threatening thousands of acres of plantations, so the cull begun, ironically, Beaufort Estate was where the most reds were killed - a total of 22,766, in a final irony, 63 years after the end of the Highland Squirrel Club, the same estates where reds were actively hunted down now offer a haven for the species.
there seemed to be no end to articles about them, then not a mention till this one, it appears that in the early 1900's a club was formed to hunt red squirrels, which now days are endangered, by 1946, the Highland Squirrel Club had killed 102,900 squirrels and paid out £1,504 in bounties, tails were submitted as proof of kills, there are several ironies in the story of the club, which was formed in 1903,
reds were extinct, or on the brink of extinction, in the Highlands by the 1800s because of a loss of woodland habitat, in 1844, Lady Lovat of Beaufort Estate near Beauly, succeeded in getting the government to re-introduce the squirrels to the Highlands,
by the 1900s, the squirrels had spread from the boundaries of the estates where they were released and were blamed for causing damage to Scots pine and other conifers, the garden novelty had become a menace threatening thousands of acres of plantations, so the cull begun, ironically, Beaufort Estate was where the most reds were killed - a total of 22,766, in a final irony, 63 years after the end of the Highland Squirrel Club, the same estates where reds were actively hunted down now offer a haven for the species.
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