Post 1,038
What? Who among you can honestly say you’ve never looked at a furry death menace like the humble self-centred grey squirrel and thought, ‘Hmm – what a bastard!’ THEY JUST ARE! Nobody likes grey squirrels. They eat the red ones! That’s like finding out the bloke who run over Bambi did it on purpose. Just take a look at Julie Bailey. One day, her garden was flooded with grey squirrels. Soon, the red squirrels became sick, with swollen faces and sores. And soon, they were dead. The grey squirrels had killed them. So what was Bailey to do? She joined a group with one goal: to exterminate all grey squirrels. And every night, Bailey and her husband, along with numerous followers, go out and shoot grey squirrels dead. She’s done this 469 times and I know that because she keeps a record, like a serial killer. But this is no ordinary fight. Labelling herself the leader of a volunteer army, she is plotting to wipe out all grey squirrels. “Kill them, kill them, kill them!” she was once heard shouting. For real! She set up a volunteer army to wipe out the greys. And this got me thinking, readers. No, not, ‘Is this right?’ but, ‘Yes, she has a point – why are grey squirrels such bastards?’ What? I’m not advocating what she does! I’m just saying, she has a point…
The grey squirrel, of course, wasn’t always a Brit. Nope, they were introduced into Britain in the 1870s and soon set about wiping out the native, and far more beautiful, red squirrels. As of 2018, there are 2.52 million grey squirrels, whilst only 10,000 reds are left. You might wonder what plonker thought it was a good idea to introduce the grey. Aristocrats! That’s who! Nobody in the UK had really seen a grey before so those fancy pants, lah-de-dah toffs thought it would be fun to bring grey squirrels to their estates, like those peacocks you see at fancy countryside hotels. Except the only difference is that the grey squirrels got out and the peacocks didn’t. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a peacock in my garden, thank you very much…
These fashionable greys were much larger than the utterly adorable reds, four times heavier, too, and so the reds stood no chance. Greys also bonk a lot more than reds, so there are more grey babies dotted around. On top of that, grey squirrels carry the squirrel pox virus, to which the reds have no immunity to. And it’s not an adorable virus, like the mumps. More like the plague. Crossed with super plague. The reds were well and truly screwed.
People really don’t like the grey squirrels here mainly because of what they’ve done to the reds, but that’s no reason to kill them. One man in 2010 was fined £1,500 for drowning a grey squirrel and that coupled with the anti-grey volunteer death squad does start to make you feel a little bit for the grey. I’m a huge supporter of rounding them all up, however, and releasing them into a country we don’t like very much. I think France would love 2.5 million grey squirrels…
The news, however, only gets worse for our greys. They love the food on bird tables. You never see a red on one, but the greys – “I WORKED SO HARD TO PAY FOR THAT FOOD FOR THE BIRDS, GO AWAY!” Usually followed by a chase with a broom, a broom that often ends up being thrown like a javelin. Nobody really seems to know what to do with them. One man was convicted of killing a grey squirrel in 2006, yet another a few years later was arrested and charged with cruelty after capturing grey squirrels that were bothering his birds and releasing them into the wild. The judge actually said these words, “You’d have faced no charges if you’d shot them dead.” HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT! What the hell do we do! It’s illegal to release greys into the wild but legal to kill them ‘humanely’. Huh.
Thankfully, the red squirrel population is beginning to recover here in North East England, but in Scotland, it’s facing serious decline. So we can’t shoot them, depending on the judge, and France would probably complain if we dumped them in Paris, but the situation is out of hand! In parts of the country, reds have gone completely. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one. And his fluffy little nose. And weird human-like hands…
Greys are already facing culls in parts of the UK but recently, more than 95,000 people signed a petition to halt all culls. Conventional traps catch grey squirrels and then they are shot or bludgeoned to death with a huge stick. Bailey argues that ‘boots on the ground’ is the only way to stop them. “We need volunteers and professionals willing to devote their days to killing greys”, she once said. And she is supported, too! The Heritage Lottery Fund and the EU have pledged more than £3 million to grey culls. Still, the hippies argue that ‘humans do not own animals’ lives but I argue that it was us who put the buggers here in the first place! Are we not righting a wrong? Julie Bailey is 50, in case you’re wondering, and a grandmother. With a shotgun. And full camouflage. Oh, and an SUV. Which she often conducts drive-by squirrel shootings from ‘on rainy days’. I shouldn’t like her so much, should I?
Since 1981, the grey has been considered a vermin in the eyes of the law, although it isn’t true that they eat birds and destroy forests, that’s just a myth. Still, I don’t think anything will stop Bailey. “Once you have seen a red squirrel with pox, you never forget it – that gives me the courage to pull the trigger.” She is insane! You might wonder what she does with the ones she kills. Her husband skins them and turns them into waistcoats. They freeze the legs for meat. And the tails go to the local fishermen for bait. I mean… she’s certainly at the extreme end of a solution, isn’t she?
All this, for me at least, certainly goes a long way to proving what I’ve said all along – grey squirrels are bastards! Scientists just this year discovered that they can transmit Lyme disease to humans, never mind pox to reds! That’s not good! And regardless of what you think, culls are needed. In 2014, 2,224 greys were killed in Cumbria alone. 1,806 in 2015. And what of Bailey? “They will come”, she says. “But only if we keep going.” She is… utterly, utterly mad. But she’s never killed a spider, so that’s something…
Why are grey squirrels such bastards? Oh, come on. Look at their horrid faces. All they’ve done to reds! And what they’re going to do to us, what with the upcoming grey-squirrel-Lyme-pocolypse. Yes, a death army isn’t the solution, whilst culls are needed, but I’m sorry to say – I’m on the side of the reds. I always will be. I look at greys and I think, “You evil little sods!” And I look at reds and I think, “Aww, they’re so cute! Like piglets rolling in hay!” And I’m sorry if that upsets any grey aficionados out there, but I will always be on the side of the red.
Long live the reds!
Ciao :)(:
Image (Click on It to Enlarge)
1) Awww… Their hands still freak me out, however…
(credits: iwradio.co.uk/2017/12/15/gardens-wanted-for-isle-of-wight-red-squirrel-project/)
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