This just reminded me of a time I was living in England in the late 90s, and a group of friends and I had found an injured grey squirrel. We called animal control for help, and their response was that if we decide to officially report it, they would have to put it down, because it’s considered an invasive species. We ended up just letting the squirrel go, sorry England, for making your map just a tiny bit more grey.
It was injured. You helped the Buzzard population. Bravo!
It looks like the displacement slowed down, but there’s 55 years between the first and second picture, and only 10 between the second and third.
We are in 2010 AD. All Wales is occupied by the Grey Squirrels. All? No! Because an island populated by irreducible Red Squirrels still resists the invader.
My my how the turntables
What do you mean? Wales has a long history of getting invaded. First by the Romans, then by the English and now by the Grey Sqirrels.
Anglesey is beautiful and if you ever end up in north Wales (if you do I’m sorry for your loss) then you should visit it
About high time they experience getting colonized
I have no background on this, but assuming it’s called as such because it came from north america, how was it introduced? Via ships like rats?
In 1876 a Victorian banker “decided to release into the wild a pair of grey squirrels he had brought back with him from a business trip to America. Other landowners, viewing the non-native species as a fashionable garden novelty, soon followed suit.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/05/red-grey-squirrels-cornwall
Rich English people and destroying native populations name a better combination.
They were released everywhere in the US for a similar reason. Towns wanted squirrels for the furry aesthetic. Before squirrels just hung out in the forest.
This isn’t a map of the UK, strictly speaking, because it includes ROI and Mann.
*a map of the British Isles
Coming over here, chewing on our nuts!
Gray squirrels are colonizing red squirrels in North America too.
We’re heading over to that side of the pond soon, my squirrel serial killer dog will come with us.
You’re welcome.
interesting, guess the greys are filling the same niche.
They are. The big thing with invasive species out competing native ones is usually, however, due to bringing in different diseases and not having predators.
ah, that, and bringing their diseases.
Anglesey is doing something right
Ah, why are the black squirrels not mapped? They are slowly taking over from the greys apparently.
fINALLY BRINGING dEMOCRACY TO WHERE IT NEEDS TO Be.
