Blog: Research

2021-10-25 | Developing a grey squirrel feeder for targeted contraceptive delivery
How can an oral contraceptive be fed to 2.5 million grey squirrels? Research to develop an oral contraceptive for grey squirrels is now entering its fourth year. As these contraceptives may affect other mammals, one of the most important parts of the research is to design a bait hopper that only grey squirrels can feed from. This is a summary by researcher Sarah Beatham on some of the work carried out with Northumberland red squirrel community groups this summer, to test if red squirrels and other animals could be prevented from feeding from the hoppers....

2021-08-17 | Tracking red squirrels in the Highlands
With temperatures as low as -15°C, steep hills, bogs, fallen trees and midges, radio-tracking squirrels in the Highlands has its challenges - but it also has plenty of rewards. A study is being carried to investigate the effect of forestry operations on red squirrels. Asking what do squirrels do when you cut down their trees? Where do they go? Do they all survive? To answer these questions, squirrels are fitted with collars that contain small VHF transmitters, and then tracked before, during and after the forestry operations taking place....