Today I’m off on my trip to Snowdonia, where if you don’t know I’m being asked to help remove a problem squirrel from a friend’s attic. Now in the past I’ve been rather gung-ho about all this, but more recently I’ve had a slight change of heart and decided that it should be done with proper decorum, procedure etc.
For those of you who think we don’t have to kill the squirrel I’m afraid ‘The Squirrel Must DIE’ – no seriously under section 14 of the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act it is illegal to release a captured Grey Squirrel as they are an invasive species, so even if we were to capture it in the attic we would be unable to release it into the wild without breaking the law.
So, if we are to kill the beast we must know how we are able to do this. I’ve called the Country Side Council for Wales who, after some deliberation (they say they’ve never been asked this question before) told me that I am allowed to shoot it. The law basically states that the killing must be in a reasonably swift and humane manner in the course of legal shooting or pest control. (Wild Mammals Protection Act 1996) This is what we intend to do, but the law does specifically prohibit some actions so I’ve created the following chart to illustrate some of the things we can’t do and I shall be pinning it up around the cottage to ensure that no one is tempted to stray. Click on the picture for a bigger version:
There has been a fair bit in the news recently about the squirrel problems:
Captured squirrels live to nibble again
Grey squirrel hunting
Patrolling the squirrel frontline
24/04/08 @ 17:53