Northumberland Wildlife Trust have released their seventh annual report which reveals that numbers of red squirrels across the North of England are stable.
The study takes into account surveys conducted in local red squirrel conservation areas across Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, County Durham, North Yorkshire, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cumbria.
The promising results show that red squirrel populations were found in 42% of all sites surveyed, while their grey counterparts were found in 48% of sites. The fact that the grey squirrel population is larger than that of red squirrels is however a cause of concern for conservation experts; red squirrels face high levels of competition for food from grey squirrels, and the greys are also carriers of the squirrelpox virus, to which they are immune however which is deadly for red squirrels.
Chairman Nick Leeming of Northern Red Squirrels, was delighted by the success of the surveys, describing how, “Reds are bouncing back in areas of Northumberland, for example around Cramlington, Morpeth and Ashington, where people are putting in the effort to look after them.
"They have also been seen in the city of Newcastle again in 2018”.
