Free condoms for Grey Squirrels

[wanderer]

I heard on BBC Radio 4 yesterday morning regarding grey squirrel contraception.
All good stuff but for it to be stated that shooting and trapping have failed to reduce the population and that contraception was to be the silver bullet (sorry..) Is putting the cart before the horse.

But i suppose we will be told in a few years time how much better of a reduction in population has come about by this method than the tried and trusted method many of our members currently use.

Then there will be no need for all the free effort of squirrel control provided by the likes of us many of us..

(Hope the squirrels can read the instructions!)

 

[User00040]

I provide prescription free lead pills, super fast delivery too!

 

[long_range_rob]

If you pop a condom over the head of a squirrel for about three minutes then it definitely won’t reproduce again.

BTW this is a joke, I do not recommend or condone suffocating squirrels, shooting them is fine though

 

[wanderer]

Probably get its nuts in a twixt (sorry meant snickers)
Ha Ha

 

[Pete1774]

I rather fancy the BBC reporters get their wildlife information from Beartix Potter and Alice in Wonderland

 

[wanderer]

If only..

 

[GWP]

This was on the main news this morning a paste is mixed with the contraceptive and used in a trap that only greys can access

 

[Squirrelbasher]

They live in cuckoo land……..snowflakes

 

[Beretta V]

Shooting and trapping works well. You just have to keep at it as the population is not controlled in other areas. I tried to tell a park ranger that was moaning about the damage they do that they could easily shoot several squirrels in an evening and save lots of hard work.
His reply was that if they do that they won’t make money on squirrel food.

I hate greys and shoot every one I can

 

[potshotpat]

Don't give access to your condoms to squirrels. When I was in sixth form mixed secondary school, we had a form condom, which when rinsed you placed it back in the knot hole in the Oak tree on the playing field. The squirrels didn't play by the rules.

 

[Klenchblaize]

Administered orally today:

K

 

[long_range_rob]

These work too

 

[75]

I have to say that, as much as it pains me, I don’t think shooting and trapping has worked (at a macro level) to reduce the population. I’ll shoot everyone I see and know lots of folk are the same but it’s a drop in the ocean. The percentage of the country where squirrels are managed is tiny compared to the amount of land where they are left alone (or even encouraged / fed!).

That said, contraception will be equally ineffective if it only targets similarly small areas.

 

[wanderer]

Hazelnut flavoured condoms!

 

[wanderer]

My point also, it will also fail due to minimal areas being targeted.

Just another drip,drip,drip against lethal management..

 

[mudman]

So how successful is the grey squirrel extermination so far?"………… Exactly, it isn’t and never will be with current methods.

 

[Beretta V]

So back in the day we ran about 10 fen traps 365 days a year and shot squirrels on site. We had days when we sat a feeders shooting squirrels too.
This was on 800 acres. First couple of years we would get 80 ish. After that the numbers really dropped. The main areas we caught were by the points on the edge of the estate where we were joined by woods/gardens where they weren’t managed.
We got to a point where it was rare to see squirrels on the estate.
Along with magpie, jay, fox control the wildlife boomed and as there were several footpaths it became a place for twitchers to go.

If you are persistent you will reduce the numbers.
The problem is areas where they don’t get controlled they will just breed

 

[wanderer]

Forget to take ( top up the contraceptive) and what happens. More little squirrels.

As has been mentioned if the "attack against the grey squirrel" isnt on all fronts to where they are living it will not succeed nationally although it will on a local level.

Granted if everyone is issued with the contraceptive and device to administer then just the same as if everyone was made to go out and shoot or trap their resident squirrels then both methods should work, but the former would take longer due to the non lethal control.

My disappointment with the radio article was that it just dismissed shooting and trapping as not working without saying this is because not everyone does it in all areas.

 

[wanderer]

2020/21 winter i and another person accounted for just over 50 squirrels in a wood.
Same wood 2021/22 and same effort maxed out at 15.
Repeat that everywhere and it would work.

But that means lethal control..

 

[morrisman]

What would happen if they were catholics?