Squirrel Infestation in Sale, Cheshire

Squirrel Infestation in Sale, Cheshire -  The grey squirrel population in North West England has rocketed over the last 20 years to the degee that they are now a major pest species.
The grey squirrels which we see in our gardens and parks (Sciurus carolinensis) are not native to Britain, having been brought here less than 200 years ago from America.
Like other members of the Sciuridae family, the Grey Squirrel is a hoarder; it hoards food in lots of small caches for later recovery. Some hoards, especially those made near the site of a sudden surplus of food.
Others are more permanent and are not retrieved until many months later. It has been estimated that each squirrel makes several thousand hoards each season. The squirrels have very accurate spatial memory for the positions of these caches, and use distant and nearby landmarks to locate them. Smell is used once the squirrel is within a short distance of the cache.
The nest of the grey squirrel is called a dray (or drey) and it is usual for the female to have two litters per year, each of two to four young..
They are minor problems, rooting up bulbs and taking food intended for birds but can become major pests when they come into our houses.
It is increasingly common for pest controllers to attend homes where a dray has been built in a loft or attic space.
Squirrels are rodents and as such have continually growing teeth; the word rodent comes from the Latin ‘rodere’ meaning ‘to gnaw’ and this they do very well indeed.
It is rare to enter a loft space where a dray has been built and find that they have not chewed electrical wiring, indeed it is estimated that up to 40% percent of fires without an obvious cause cause may be started by rodents chewing on the wiring.
Unfortunately they can also chew through water-pipes, especially with the recent trend towards plastic push-fit piping.
As if that wasn’t enough, most household insurance policies specifically exclude damage by rodents so if a squirrel floods your house by chewing through a pipe in the loft you may find yourself without cover.
Removing squirrels requires professional help, not least in as much as the law regarding squirrels needs to be obeyed. You cannot simply buy a packet of rat poison from your local hardware and deal with them that way as you would be committing a criminal offence.
Furthermore you cannot trap them and move them some distance from your home, quite apart from the fact that removing a squirrel from the area of its food caches would probably condemn it to death by starvation, it is also a criminal offence under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 under which it is illegal to release a grey squirrel in Britain.
That applies also to rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing injured squirrels.
In most cases trapping is the the only option and this must be done in a specified manner with routine, timed inspections of the traps.
Trapped squirrels should be then despatched humanely.

That concludes this article – Squirrel Infestation in Sale, Cheshire

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