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When grey squirrels hampered war effort
• IT may not be generally known, or remembered, that the grey squirrel suffered a bounty on its tail during the Second World War sufficient to cover the cost of a 12-bore cartridge, and perhaps some more. (Peer takes up the gun to wipe out ‘pesky grey’, October 23.)
These foreign interlopers, not even European, were considered a handicap to the war effort and future British productivity because they snipped the succulent leading shoots of deciduous saplings and young trees making them grow crooked and less valuable, or useless, as timber.
Furthermore, in Gloucestershire, of which I have experience, they ate the fledglings of game and other birds.
Red squirrels do not prefer conifers, as stated by Ms Anderson. I have seen red squirrels in broad-leaf woods outside Paris where there are no grey interlopers. And remember the pretty and friendly little things in Regent’s Park before being driven out by the stronger grey or infected by them.
The grey carry the “squirrel pox” to which they are immune, but the red one lacks this immunity – a very effective means of racial genocide.
Greys make very good eating. When they felled my cos lettuces for the sake of the laudanum in the stem, I shot them. Fair exchange – they went out in bliss.
Grey squirrels have about as much meat as quail and their fur is more useful than feather.
I suppose Advocates For Animals protect feral mink which are annihilating our water vole (“Ratty” of Wind in the Willows), and the American crayfish let loose into our streams damaging the banks and destroying our indigenous smaller crayfish which are more palatable.
OLIVER COX
Achilles Road, NW6
Let’s get rid of this menace to native birds and trees
• I TOTALLY support Lord Redesdale’s culling of the grey squirrel population.
Grey squirrels have been responsible for the loss of many of our native birds; when did anyone in London last see a sparrow, for example?
When I was a child growing up in the Hampshire, countryside red squirrels, although not numerous were to be seen from time to time as were flocks of sparrows.
The Forestry commission introduced a bounty on grey squirrels in the 1950s. Initially they paid one shilling (5p) for each tail returned and this was later increased to two shillings (10p).
During my school holidays this bounty became pocket money for me and as a result of this bounty the number of grey squirrels never became a major problem.
The bounty scheme ended years ago, and since then the number of these pests has increased rapidly.
It is not only to other birds that they represent a danger. Ask any landowner who has planted trees about the damage they can cause.
The emotive outburst from Advocates for Animals conveniently avoids the fact that grey squirrels were themselves introduced to this country and have been responsible for the demise of our native red squirrels.
Greys need to be culled, either by shooting or by biological means. The sooner the better.
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