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Red squirrels ‘to vanish from England’ unless vaccine against squirrelpox funded (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/nature@feddit.uk

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Red squirrels ‘to vanish from England’ unless vaccine against squirrelpox funded

Conservation group warns species threatened by exploding populations of grey squirrels who carry lethal virus Donna Ferguson Sat 16 Nov 2024 21.29 GMT

Red squirrels will soon disappear from England unless the government funds a vaccine against squirrelpox, one of the biggest groups set up to protect the species has warned.

Conservationists say the English population of non-native grey squirrels has exploded this year, triggered by warmer winters which enable mating pairs to feed and breed all year round, and estimate that 70% are carrying squirrelpox, a virus which is lethal only to red squirrels.

“We’re facing a huge surge of grey squirrels,” said Robert Benson, founder of Penrith and District Red Squirrel Group, which covers 600 square miles of Cumbria.

“We think they are breeding three or four times a year, and having four or five kits each time, leading to a massive expansion in grey squirrel numbers: 15 or 20 young grey squirrels are moving through the countryside [each year], from each breeding pair.”

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[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

sigh. britain. they thought brexit would fix their problems and that they were not being funded by the EU. now there is no funding. when is the next election? nigel will beat keir?

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 2 points 23 hours ago

An over simplification, although the general point about Brexiters not understanding is correct.

The UK was giving more to the EU then we got back in funding. That is fine, in my opinion we were better off then others.

But the numbers Brexiters used were openly ignoring that some of that money was very much coming back to the UK as funding.

While completely dismissing the huge fiscal benefits being in the customs and trade union gave us. Over trying to trade outside that union with any options we could achieve without it.

Our current lack of funding. And the less extreme one we had before brexit. While not helped by the stupid vote. Was entirly due to us voting in governments that refused to invest in anything significant since the 1980. Plus adding governments that impelmented austerity rather then internal investment since 2010.