Grey squirrel contraception

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I helped on a APHA (Animal and Plant HealthAgency) project run by BASC looking into this a little while ago in the St. Asaph area, studying possible ways of getting the dope into squirrels. I both shoot and trap the little grey monsters but certainly we need a "politically correct " approach to make a dent in the urban population which will just continue to top up any spaces we make in rural areas. They are such a pest we need an all methods approach.

David.

Mind you the Columbians will have a bigger problem their new invasive species is the hippo and that may well need culling but already there is a campaign to save them. I would let these idiots go and play with a cuddly hippo and see how long the love lasts!
 
Kalahari said:
I helped on a APHA (Animal and Plant HealthAgency) project run by BASC looking into this a little while ago in the St. Asaph area, studying possible ways of getting the dope into squirrels. I both shoot and trap the little grey monsters but certainly we need a "politically correct " approach to make a dent in the urban population which will just continue to top up any spaces we make in rural areas. They are such a pest we need an all methods approach.

David.

Mind you the Columbians will have a bigger problem their new invasive species is the hippo and that may well need culling but already there is a campaign to save them. I would let these idiots go and play with a cuddly hippo and see how long the love lasts!
Click to expand...
Let me guess David 🤔🤔🤔🤔

The campaign to save them is being done by non locals who the hippos don't affect and fronted by so called celebrity faces...
 
Kalahari said:
Mind you the Columbians will have a bigger problem their new invasive species is the hippo and that may well need culling but already there is a campaign to save them. I would let these idiots go and play with a cuddly hippo and see how long the love lasts!
Click to expand...

That last bit made be chuckle.

The other week people on Facebook were getting all teary eyed at a video of a Hippo 'saving' a young gazelle (or some similar creature) by knocking it out of mud it was stuck in whilst being worried at by hunting dogs.

It all seemed a little unlikely so I went on Youtube and found the whole video. Shortly after the Facebook version ended, the hippo went up to the gazelle and crushed it to death in its jaws!
 
Isn't one of the concerns about squirrel contraception the effects on humans and animals that eat them, and the difficulty of targeting just one species? Of course, the safest method is to catch them first and administer the dose!
 
AGR said:
Isn't one of the concerns about squirrel contraception the effects on humans and animals that eat them, and the difficulty of targeting just one species? Of course, the safest method is to catch them first and administer the dose!
Click to expand...
I administer a dose of AirArms Field, applied between the eyes. That is pretty effective in stopping the ones I dose breeding any more.
 
My worry with this is that once carried out, there’s no turning back. If it later turns out that there are any problems with this approach (it can jump species for example), then it’ll be too late.

Also, one of the key arguments for this and the gene editing approach was the huge cost of culling, which was valued in the millions of I remember correctly. How they ever arrived at this figure I have no idea. I can only assume by assigning a cash value to the time spent by people culling them for free. Very generous (will they send a cheque?!), but also entirely disingenuous, which is a bit of a red flag.
 
Goldsmith makes me think the House of Lords is a bad idea, he must be bank rolling Boris to a serious extent. But Kalahari makes an interesting point.
 
A potential advantage of contraception or gene editing is that culling can lead to "compensatory reproduction". Reduce the population, more food for those left, who have more offspring. It tends to apply to rapidy breeding multi-birth species
 
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