Squirrel with myxomatosis

Colonel

Well-Known Member
We where shooting squirrels yesterday morning and we found 3 had what looked like myxomatosis, eyes closed and pussy, has anyone else seen or heard of this. Do squirrels catch myxomatosis?
 
I shot a grey in a trap and it had a pussy looking eye but the blood kinda messed it up, would be good if greys started coming down with it
 
I'd be happy if it wiped the greys out. Horrible little feckers. It will never happen but I would love to see reds back where they belong
 
We have Red Squirrels on the Isle of Wight, unfortunately they have both squirrel pox & squirrel leprosy. I'm not sure if they are infected by Lyme disease as well, Red Squirrels in France have been found with it.
 
They where indeed grey squirrels. The eyes where closed with the eyelids swollen with puss inside. Unfortunately we don’t have red squirrels in this area to my knowledge, so if the greys get taken out then great.
 
I'd second wot slyvanius said above, normally the greys only carry the pox virus (and thankfully only the english greys) and are rarely affected by it.
Must be pretty immune to it, reds aren't and it decimates them very quickly, heard of hundreds dieing in some areas in a very shoort space of time.

If the pox ever becomes rife among the scottish cenral belt greys there spread further north will become far easier and quickier (so far only a couple of greys have ever tested positive for it furher north)

Dunno if u find many more it might be worth contacting a squirrel group incase it is a new disease?
 
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