Red squirrel week in Limavady

The red squirrel is one of the most popular and easily recognisable of our woodland mammals. With their distinctive russet fur, tufted ears and twitching tail, a red squirrel is always a captivating sight in our forests!

They’re agile, cute and furry, and we’re all nuts about them! Yet, these flashes of red are becoming more and more rare. Disease, loss of habitat and increasing numbers of grey squirrels have taken their toll on our red squirrel population, which has fallen rapidly in recent years.

Rachel Bain, Biodiversity Officer for Ballymoney, Coleraine, Limavady and Moyle Council explained, “We are lucky enough to have some areas where red squirrels are still present in good numbers, like the Glens of Antrim, however there are many woodlands where we don’t know if the red squirrel is still present or not.

“To mark the start of Red Squirrel Week, we are asking everyone who sees a red squirrel to make a note / record of where they saw it, what date and time, and how many if you were lucky enough to see more than one, and send this information to your local red squirrel group or Biodiversity Officer.”

There are two groups within this area, Glens Red Squirrel Group www.glensredsquirrelgroup.com and the North West Red Squirrel Group www.nwredsquirrel.org

Rachel added, “We are also interested in any sighting of grey squirrels, this helps us figrue out how wide spread the greys are and helps us better target help for our native red squirrels.”

For further information on the red squirrel please contact you local red squirrel group or Rachel Bain, Biodiversity Officer, [email protected]