There has been an interesting progress report from the UK Squirrel Accord, who are midway through their project of finding a species specific oral contraception for the invasive non-native grey squirrel.

The seminar is worth looking at as it gives an insight into the challenges and complexity of the project.

It is posted here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVHhIJxAUnQ&t=3626s. However, it’s about two hours long, if you don’t have time to view the whole thing, visit the main Squirrel Accord project page.

The UK Squirrel Accord have published a comprehensive FAQ here.

And finally, a blog of the last year’s fieldwork is here.

If, like me, you have seen the  damage that grey squirrels cause to your woods and been frustrated at attempts to control their numbers, it may be an opportunity to get up to speed with this project and offer some support.  They have a donations page here and I’m sure they would be most grateful for any help you can offer.https://squirrelaccord.uk/donate/

I was looking around my wood the other day and I don’t appear to have any hornbeam which have not been scarred by their bark stripping activities. It would be great to be able to coppice them with the prospect of them coming back healthy and strong.