Recalibrating risk: implications of squirrelpox virus for successful red squirrel translocations within mainland UK

Shuttleworth, Craig M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0076-6789 , Brady, Deborah, Cross, Paul, Gardner, Laura, Greenwood, Andrew, Jackson, Nick, McKinney, Conor, Robinson, Nikki, Trotter, Stephen, Valle, Simon, Wood, Kim and Hayward, Matt W. (2021) Recalibrating risk: implications of squirrelpox virus for successful red squirrel translocations within mainland UK. Conservation Science and Practice, 3 (2). e321.

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Abstract

Introduced grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) cause native red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) decline via resource competition (Wauters, Gurnell, Martinoli, & Tosi, 2002) and carry squirrelpox virus (SQPV). Infection is sporadically transmitted to red squirrels and spreads within the population—precipitating disease. Sainsbury et al. (2020) assert that UK mainland red squirrel reintroductions cannot be justified in light of international guidance and that translocations will fail because of SQPV. They suggest animal suffering will result because grey squirrel control cannot be sufficient to prevent epidemic disease amongst sympatric red squirrels.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Conservation Science and Practice
Publisher:	Wiley Open Access
ISSN:	2578-4854
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Forestry and Conservation
Additional Information:	Deborah Brady, Centre for Wildlife Conservation, University of Cumbria, UK (PhD on squirrel ecology). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
SWORD Depositor:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	30 Nov 2020 14:47
Last Modified:	08 Oct 2024 08:59
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/5800

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