Native red squirrels are about to claim a decisive victory in the long-running battle for survival with their invasive grey rivals in one of Scotland’s biggest cities.
A national project set up to reverse the decline of the native creatures has announced that grey squirrels could be completely eradicated from Aberdeen “in the near future”.
Red squirrels had struggled for decades to gain a foothold in the city as thousands of greys maintained an isolated population in the city, the last bastion for the non-native species north of Argyll and Tayside.
Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS), which is led by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, has trapped over 10,000 greys since 2009, but this year there have been only 12 detections in the city, including seven at feeders and five confirmed sightings. None have been trapped in 2024.
Dr Emma Sheehy, SSRS’s eradication scientific lead for northeast Scotland, said: “In Aberdeen, what we have seen over the last four years is a consistent and significant decline in the numbers of grey squirrels trapped, and in the number of detections we have had both in terms of sightings, and hair samples at feeders.
“This is a result of long-term, consistent trapping since 2009, and in more recent years, adapting our methods to become much more targeted in our trapping, as grey squirrel densities in the city declined.