Red Squirrels Thrive in Firkin Wood

Red squirrels in Luss

A recent sighting of red squirrels at Firkin, near Tarbet, has shown the success of our considerable effort to encourage their revival on the Luss Estate. 

Seven red squirrels were sighted by woodland maintenance contractors working on
behalf of the Estate on their visit on 20th December 2019. A number of individual sightings were
made on the Estate last year however this is the first occasion on which so many have been seen together at once. 

Once common across the UK, the population of red squirrels underwent a catastrophic decline in the last hundred years, primarily due to competition for food and living space by invasive, non-native American grey squirrels. Grey squirrels also carry Squirrelpox, a virus lethal to reds but not to greys.

Luss Estates, with support from Forestry Scotland and Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels, carries out an annual programme of removal of grey squirrels in order to encourage the revival of red squirrels on the Estate.

In 2019 a total of 13 red squirrels were reported in 8 separate sightings on the Estate, compared to only a single sighting in 2018 and none the year before. We are extremely pleased to see the return of this much loved but threatened species and will continue to work to encourage the growth of the population.

We encourage members of the public to report red squirrel sights, regardless of where they are seen to Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels at https://scottishsquirrels.org.uk/squirrel-sightings/  These reports are added to their database and help them form the basis of their long term conservation plans.