The Gruffalo Helps

As odd as the title sounds, the Gruffalo, the well known hairy beast from the minds of Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson, is helping red squirrels in the UK.
To be precise, drawings of the Gruffalo are being auctioned off on ebay to raise money for red squirrels. Signed original sketches of the famous monster, along with sketches of some of Axel's other characters, went on sale on 3rd December 2010. The auction runs for 10 days, so if you happen tyo see this before 12noon on Monday 13th December, get onto ebay and bid for one!

All funds raised will go directly to Save our Squirrels.
If you miss the auction, limited edition prints of the artwork will go on sale on ebay after Xmas 2010, so visit www.saveoursquirrels.org for the latest details as to when this will happen. There will be a direct link, as now, to the live auctions.

Also have a look out for Axel's newest book, How to Keep a Pet Squirrel. A truely charming book about how one should ensure a oet squirrel is kept happy - based on an entry in a children's encyclopedia dating from 1910.

The book is available on Amazon or through the SoS website. Money from the sale of this book also supports red squiggs, so get buying! :-)

Happy Christmas to you all!

Barbeque Baby!

Save Our Squirrels is hard at work organising its summer barbeque for 31st July. We are holding it near SOS territory, which will make storage and logistics SO much easier as we have a whole bunch of stuff which needs moving about!

The theme is Alien Invaders, to bring attention to the awesome destructive power of invasive non-native species like the eastern grey squirrel, which is doing so much damage to our beloved reds. But that's not all! There'll be representation from marine people, too! There are many invasive non-native species swimming about in our oceans, lakes and rivers which needs careful observation and sensitive control.

Our aims at this event are to raise awareness for types of invasive non-natives and to advise you about a sustainable and responsible way of cohabiting with your environment. Because it is your environment, which you hold in trust for everyone else and generations to come. It is your job, my job and the people you know's jobs to keep the biological balance even and be mindful enough of your surroundings to retain as much as you can of what makes Britain great. Events like the Alien Invaders BBQ are opportunities not to be missed, so back your car full of your friends and family and spend a sunny afternoon doing your part.

AND it'll be so much fun, you might explode. I know I'm excited. In fact, I'm not sure I want you to come now. More delicious foods for me!

New Blood!

I suppose I ought to introduce myself. I have recently started (week two! Woo!) as a Community Engagement Assistant at the northern office of Cumbria Wildlife Trust. Along with the existing team and another CEA, I will be promoting the SoS project in the Cumbria area. Suffice it to say that I am enjoying it enormously so far and it's a project which promises to challenge me in new ways for a worthy cause. I have chosen the soubriquet Squirrel Nutkin because a) it's squirrely, duh; and b) it's a mild homage to Beatrix Potter, something of a local icon.

A little bit about me. I am originally from Cumbria and therefore familiar with the local area and the culture of the county, allowing me to tailor my efforts to greatest effect, which helps, because that's my job! I am involved in volunteer work within the community, so working at Save Our Squirrels is a natural extension of my previous experience. If I can find a way to blend these together, all the better! I'm all about the synergy.

So, what am I doing here? I'm scheduled to stay here until November, by which time I hope to have made a significant impact on everyone out there. I will be working closely with SoS affiliates and Squirrelpaws to increase awareness for our organisation and, more importantly, our little furry friend, the red squirrel or sciurus vulgaris. I shan't spoil the surprise, but we have some interesting things planned in the coming months which you won't want to miss! I hope to have raised the profile of Save Our Squirrels significantly by the time I leave.

As I write this, we're just getting down to business. Squirrelpaws has left us CEAs to fend for ourselves for the afternoon while she does very important business in far away Geordie land.

Last week, beyond the admin involved with starting work somewhere new, we got to meet the team at the head office in their lovely building which makes us all very envious and also visit Whinlatter Forest Park west of Keswick. It was a new experience for me as I hadn't been there as an adult and it seemed much smaller than when I last went! (OK, I was about nine, but I don't see how that's relevant...) I'll be guiding visitors around a squirrel trail before long, so keep an eye out for a bemused person wandering around in an SoS t-shirt and try not to get eaten by any wildlife while on the walk because I don't know what to do if it happens and nobody will tell me...oh, and I saw a red squirrel, too, which made my day!

But anyway! That's me. More to come, no doubt, as time progresses. But for now, I'll wish you all a Squirrely week!

Saving Reds - The Next Phase

Hi again, its been a while since I last updated this because I wasn't quite sure what to put. The red squirrel conservation world has been in something of a limbo for several months now, while "The Future" is decided upon. The strategies, the people or organisation who should be involved, who are involved already, what roles they should or do play and of course how its going to get paid for is all up for discussion. Now being led by the government, Natural England and the Forestry Commission, there are many things I cannot say here and frankly I'm too far down the food chain to know all of the ins and outs anyway, but what I can say is that there is finally movement. This can only be a good thing as by hesitating, one often loses the game.

The last phase of squiggy conservation has been led by the Save our Squirrels Project - see earlier blog entry on what they do, but essentially they are made up of a partnership of lots of other organistaions including the Wildlife Trusts and NE/FC to deliver the stratgey that they all decided upon. SoS works with the volunteer groups and local communities to protect the red. In the next phase, which I'm told at this point will kick off in about September 2010 (watch the British press for media releases on this later in the year), there will be an even bigger project, predominantly aimed at culling the introduced grey squirrels (the indistputeable main reason for the reds decline), which will be led by the government i.e. their money mostly, but delivered in partnership by whoever wins the contract for the work. Watch this space.

So while things are definately on the move again, there are still many unknowns. What I do know, however, is that without ongoing financial support, in a big way, the work will not happen and Tufty will die. All the strategies and partnerships in the world cannot do anything without cash, so if you as an individual, or as a company want to help keep the work going, please donate or sponsor an element. Contact Save our Squirrels through their website www.saveoursquirrels.org
Thanks to Andrea and Keith Cameron for the picture of the squigs in their garden in Cumbria.

Squirrels on TV

My career took an exciting step forward recently, thanks to the ever delightful red squirrel. This adorable creature was to be featured on the BBC's popular Autumnwatch television programme, so someone was required to be interviewed. I was called in to be that person!
I was told I'd be interviewed by presenter Kate Humble, who I've always thought had the best job ever (second only to being a Blue Peter Presenter) and who is something of an inspiration to me. So it was with mixed feelings of nervousness, excitment and fear of being star-struck, that I arrived at Dodd Wood, near Bassenthwaite Lake, Cumbria, to film.

Kate immediately introduced herself and was very friendly, so put me at my ease. We had a quick chat "off camera" (look at me with all the lingo!) to go through some of the things she'd be asking. All we needed now were some squirrels and for it to stop raining! Luckliy we got both.

We were filming at a feeding station, so the squirrels were very keen to get their breakfast, even with these odd people hanging around right next to them. There were usually 2 or 3 reds right by us for the whole time the cameras were rolling. They obligingly scampered about, buried the food or sat looking picture-book cute on the tree stump where the nuts had been put.

We must have got about an hour and a half's worth of footage, but the final version, of course, was much shorter -maybe 5 minutes, so much of what I wanted to say was edited out. However, I was very pleased to get the chance to set the record straight to such a big audience (the programme has viewing figures of about 4 million people). The grey squirrel is often demonised, and portrayed as a "bad" animal. It really isn't. Its just in the wrong place. In its own, carefully balanced ecosystem, it is as enigmatic and entertaining as our red. Having said that, I also wanted to get across just how vital it is to control their numbers here in the North of England, or we undoubtedly will lose the native species.
So my TV debut was a big sucess. I've had lots of positive feedback from people about it, so I must have said something right! Even Kate said I did a good job, which made my day!

My role in red squirrel conservation is always challenging, but never dull. I love my job!

The Joys of Spring

My two guinea pigs gave birth a couple of days ago to four of the sweetest babies you've ever seen. It struck me how different a newborn guinea pig is from a newborn red squirrel. Despite them both being small rodents, the young are born at quite different stages of development.

My little piggies, ("pups" I'm informed they are called) came out as complete animals, all covered in fur, open-eyed and ready to go. The newborn squirrel, or "kitten", is at the other end of the scale. Not only are they hairless and blind like mice, but they are also deaf. They are just tiny cocktail sausages, totally reliant on mum for everything.

My latest additions to the family are already eating grass at just two days old! They are of course still drinking mum's milk, but I think they are incredible.

How is it that two such closely related animals have evolved such different strategies for their young? One thought is that, having seen a heavily pregnant guinea pig waddle round the hutch and up and down the ramp, there's no way she'd be able to climb a tree! Perhaps the pressure of need to get out of the way by climbing is enough to offset the vulnerability of the tiny kitten.

The Power of the Internet

I was thinking about how I could get people to see this blog and was running through all the places I could put it. It struck me how powerful the internet is. I know that seems like an obvious thing to say, but every now and then it hits me as to all the things that are possible now that simply weren't in very recent times.

We, the Save our Squirrels project, and the conservation world at large, use a variety of ways to get our message out there. For example we have our own website - of course, that's what everyone expects. We also use Facebook, links from other websites, online newspapers and the charity search engine Everyclick. A huge amount of what we have been able to do is also down to the invention of emails.

Funny how the march of progress which has caused so much distruction of the world, is the very thing that allows us to pull it back from the brink.