Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2015 | Page 57

COUNTRY LIFE she was made redundant from the bank where she worked, went on a course at the IW College in 1991, and subsequently joined the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV). Helen recalled: “I found myself walking through woods looking for hazelnuts to find the markings on them where little animals had tried to eat them. Small mice nibble at them but a red squirrel will actually split the nut in half. That fascinated me and my interest just grew from there. I set up a group in 1993 that became known as the Wight Squirrel Project; I did an Open University degree and a teaching course, and began doing talks on red squirrels.” Ironically residents are now among the biggest threat to red squirrels on the Island, even though many people feed them regularly and do their best to protect “Contingency plans are in place in case them. Helen continued: “Unfortunately a grey squirrel is spotted here, and in many red squirrels are road casualties, 2001 a pregnant grey female was found but at least that tells us that numbers are dead near Freshwater which sparked an high - the fewer the squirrels the fewer alert. Thankfully no more were found, the road casualties. I went on a course in even though we scoured that area in West pathology in 2001 because you can learn Wight for two years.” a lot from a squirrel’s dead body. Helen has recently travelled the country “Cats cause a problem because they with a camcorder making a ‘Red v Grey’ can pass on a disease, and then of course film, which has been distributed to some die because of rat poisoning, schools and education establishments, which is illegal because red highlighting the fact that red squirrel squirrels are protected survival is still very much on a knife edge, by law.” and how they should be protected. Contrary to The Red popular Squirrel belief red Trust charity squirrels was also do not set up in hibernate 2005 to help in the winter, raise the but rely on a stock awareness of of hazelnuts, sweet chestnuts and seeds reds on the Island, with to survive. Helen said: “There are certain walks and talks; the facility for areas on the Island where red squirrels members of the public to adopt one, and are more prevalent, including around for youngsters to belong to the Alverstone, Quarr, Shanklin Old Bushy Tail Club. Village, Fort Victoria, the Garlic Helen added: “A lot Farm and Firestone Copse. of my work is about Squirrels don’t get tame, educating people but they do get used to and monitoring red people, especially when squirrels. Monitoring they are hungry. But is vital so if anyone when there is plenty of has a red squirrel food around, usually in their garden, or in August, they tend to sees one elsewhere, disappear from people’s please let me know, gardens into the woods to or fill in a questionnaire get their natural food, and are which is available on website rarely seen.” wightsquirrels.co.uk Although there are thought to be no “I still find red squirrels very interesting, grey squirrels currently on the Island, and as long as I feel I can Helen revealed that she often receives do something to help reports of ‘grey’ sightings simply them I will carry on because there are greymy work. But if it coloured red ones. She said: ever gets to the “I am happy to be given point where I those sorts of sightings think I can’t do any because I do not want to more, then that put anyone off reporting will be the time to the possibility of a grey look for someone else one here. Grey squirrels are to do it.” virtually twice the size