| We rightly prize our Red Squirrel in Scotland. In fact the term iconic is often applied. The past is a bit darker though. Not so long ago they were widely persecuted as vermin. Foresters, in particular, despatched them as counter to their objectives of planting and maturing forests. The numbers fell so low that they may have gone extinct. We don't know for sure since there was a re-introduction programme carried out. Likely the population went through a bit of a genetic bottleneck. Our Squirrels are brownish in all months but support ear tufts from about November to March. Pictured is a Red Squirrel from Sweden in April. The tufts are much longer and his winter coat is much greyer, so much so that some would initially query whether it is in fact a Grey Squirrel. Not so. |  |
RSS Feed
