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June 2023 saw the end of this first phase of the Bute Red Squirrel Project. All our feeders <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" June 2023 saw the end of this first phase of the Bute Red Squirrel Project. All our feederswere gathered in, cleaned up and put in storage for the time being. We now have a moreacademic challenge. We are writing up what we have found and thinking about our plans forthe future. When the report is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-from-the-chair"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
were gathered in, cleaned up and put in storage for the time being. We now have a more
academic challenge. We are writing up what we have found and thinking about our plans for
the future. When the report is complete and approved by the project team, we will be
sending it out to experts in the field of red squirrel conservation and other interested people
and organisations to seek their views on how the project should proceed from here.
From what we know already, there are a few things that we could get started on
immediately.
The biggest issue is probably habitat fragmentation. For red squirrels this means living in
isolated pockets of woodland with no links between them. This inhibits the spread of
squirrels from one wood to another, limiting their ability to find a range of different foods
through the year and it restricts the number of squirrels that can reproduce with. Fixing this
fragmentation is not an easy task; it will involve lots of different people and, with the best will
in the world, will take maybe a decade for a newly planted hedgerow to mature into an
attractive wildlife corridor.
One of the easiest things we could do is to set up a feeding site, ensuring that the squirrels
in at least one location will have enough food to get them through the lean periods in their
year. We need to be careful that we don\u2019t create a dependence on the feeding site, but it\u2019s
something we could achieve in a matter of weeks.
If you have a view on how the Red Squirrel Project should proceed from here, we would love
to hear from you. Use the form on the website:
https:\/\/www.butemuseum.org.uk\/buteredsquirrelproject\/contact-us-report-a-sighting\/<\/a>
or email us at buteredsquirrel@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n