Grey squirrels need to be ‘controlled’ or native reds will be ‘annihilated’ says Gregory Campbell

The East Derry MP issued the warning during a debate in Westminster.

“We need Government and wider society to accept that either we allow the grey squirrel population to proceed as it has in recent decades, which will eventually lead to the annihilation of the red, or we significantly control the greys to preserve the native red squirrel species,” he stated.

Mr. Campbell was speaking to a motion tabled by Conservative MP Virginia Crosbie who described grey squirrels as ‘a menace to British biodiversity’.

She quoted from WB Yeats’ 1909 poem ‘An Appointment’ which described the native Irish red squirrel as ‘proud’ and ‘wayward’ with a ‘fierce tooth and cleanly limb’ and finished with the line ‘no government appointed him’.

“Just two years after he wrote those words, American grey squirrels were introduced to Ireland and, as has been the case across much of the UK, this hardier and more aggressive species took over, pushing the red squirrel out and threatening its very existence.

“Although no Government appointed the red squirrel in Yeats’s poem, it is clearly up to our Government to reappoint red squirrels, a much-loved native species, to their natural homes. Grey squirrels are a menace to British biodiversity. They have proven perilous for our native red squirrel population,” she said.

Ms. Crosbie suggested that reintroducing pine martens would have a positive impact on reducing grey squirrel populations and enhancing red squirrel populations.

Red Squirrels hiding out in City Cemetery