Bid to save squirrels from deadly disease

So far, £320,000 has been raised by volunteers with the Wildlife Ark Trust to protect red squirrels from the disease, carried by the non-native greys.

But the charity needs another £88,000 for the final six months of the pioneering three-year scheme to develop a vaccine.

Four potential vaccines have been identified since the project began in January, 2009, but more money is required to make and field test them.

“We have been very moved by the messages that often accompanied the previous donations,” said Trust chairman Robert Wilkin.

“One elderly lady donor stated that she would love to see a red squirrel in the wild before she died.

"On another occasion, a 13-year-old girl donated her pocket money.”

Jerry Moss, a red squirrel ranger at Whinfell Forest Reserve in Eden, has backed the project.

“If a vaccine can be developed it would be another way of saving our native red squirrel,” said Mr Moss.

“It’ll be a shame to stop this project when it’s been going on for so long.

"All the hard work the charity is doing is fantastic and the £88,000 that could help keep this project rolling could save the red squirrel.”

Mr Moss said that grey squirrels would still need to be culled even if a vaccine was successfully found to ensure that they did not out-compete native reds for food and shelter. But he said with the vaccine, the ‘panic’ to stop greys from killing reds would reduce.

The grey squirrel has been decimating red numbers since it was first introduced in the late 1800s.

Grey squirrels are also carriers of the virus, where lesions develop and spread over a red’s body from the skin around the eyes and nose.

As the disease progresses, some reds can die from secondary infections but the vast majority, crippled and unable to see, cannot feed themselves and starve to death.

To make a donation, send a cheque to The Wildlife Ark Trust to The Red Squirrel Appeal, The Wildlife Ark Trust, PO Box 63, Consett, DH8 0UR.