Squirrel in house

Jalima, I was at the back praying my number didn’t come up?

why would they be here.
because they were introduced to this country in the 1800s by the Victorians and escaped in the 1870s - now there are about 2.5 million in the UK.

Do you not think that the stoat should be eliminated in NZ? Another introduced species (by the Victorians in 1884) and there are scarcely any native kakapo left there now because the stoats eat their eggs. I think there are 62 kakapo left altogether.

That cannot be right.

PamelaJ1 I just watched from a distance.
I've had to run the gauntlet of cane toads on a stormy night! They were everywhere.

"Would you like it if a neighbour shot your beloved pet dog in the head" How would you like it if your neighbour brought home a wild animal from his holidays abroad "because it is so cute" which turned out to have rabies and bit your beloved pet dog, passing on the lethal disease to it, so that you had to watch while your pet died horribly?

Red squirrels die horribly if they catch squirrelpox. Grey squirrels carry it and pass it on, but it doesn't affect them. Grey squirrels were brought here from North America by estate owners who wanted a cute exotic species.

Here are some photographs. You won't like them, they are not cute, they won't make you go "Ahhhh!", but they are the reality of importing alien animals with alien diseases.
Red squirrels with squirrel pox.

One dead squirrel seems to have become a mountain instead of a molehill.

A scurry of squirrels icanhandthemback!

It's a pity that this one didn't scurry out the way it got in.

Jalima1108,

A squirrel that lives in your yard does not suddenly become unable to be released into the wild if he finds his way inside of your home. Such laws forbidding the release of animals into the wild pertain to such things as releasing pet boa constrictors or tarantulas into areas, states or countries which they normally don't inhabit. Releasing aquarium fish into a local pond where they can decimate the local fish also falls under that heading. But releasing a squirrel back into your yard - when it's home is up in one of your trees - is quite okay. Next time, please, just open a window and close the door behind you as you leave the room. Give the little guy some time and a chance to find his way back outside.

Nope. There is one just for squirrels.

If grey squirrels had no tails and looked less like a red squirrel and more lke a rat, i wonder whether there would bve such an outcry?

And I wonder how often it has to be said that there IS in fact a law forbidding the release of squirrels? which ARE animals in a country they normally didn't inhabit until they were brought in and released.

I can't imagine that law being brought into effect against someone chasing out a creature which had entered their house by mistake, but it does exist and a pest control officer officially removing one is obliged to kill it, not release it elsewhere.

GREY squirrels ARE vermin. They have seriously reduced our indigenous Red squirrels.
To release into the wild is illegal in the UK, I believe.
In houses they, like rats, can cause serious house fires through chewing through electrical wires.
Shooting is a legal, humane way of removing them.

Natural selection.

I am with Bluebell here, i live where there are a lot of seagulls, and i often have a squirrel in my garden, illegal or not, who would know if you released it
I would have opened a window and shut the door
Hate fox hunting and Badger culling too

How about rats? Would those who would spare a squirrel spare a rat too?

Marilii I think you may be in the USA where the grey squirrel is an indigenous species - however, it is an introduced species in the UK (brought over from North America by those well-meaning Victorians!).

Anja
I would term it 'unnatural selection' as they're not native!

It seems to depend partly on how cute they look, which shouldn't be the criteria.
This is the little fellow who did all the damage in our house.:
wtop.com/garden-plot/2017/08/mole-problem-vole-problem-heres-treat/
Looks very cute.
They're also worse than moles for ruining lawns.
Called rats taupiers in France.

He looks so sweet and innocent Fennel

Horrid,, just open the window contaminated indeed for goodness sake it's a little squirrel!!!

A recent study by the University of Glasgow has found that grey squirrels carry the Borrelia bacteria, which can cause Lyme disease in humans when it is transferred via ticks. ... It is passed to humans via the sheep or deer tick (Ixodes ricinus). These ticks are commonly found on rodents and birds.29 Mar 2016

omg that poor squirrel!!!. shame on you ,why couldnt you have used a broom to shoo it out..cant believe you think its ok to kill an animal....glad i dont live near you..... i feed 4 squirrels along with the wild birds.they maybe rats with tails as you put it, but they furry enjoyable animals. shame on pest control could have trapped it and let it go. it might have been a mother squirrel with babies.. ......

Interesting isn't it that although it has been stated that releasing a grey squirrel into the wild is illegal some people would still do it. I wonder if they would accept law-breaking in any other situation?

No. because pest control would have broken the law and lost his job if he had trapped it and let it go.

Furry enjoyable animals that carry a disease that kills red squirrels and another that humans can catch and become very ill.

Does anyone actually READ the thread before they post?

It is ilegal to release a tiger, too - but they are also furry enjoyable animals, so let's have a few in every wood!

It is ilegal to release a tiger, too - but they are also furry enjoyable animals, so let's have a few in every wood!
You jest elegran, but the Lynx Trust has been fighting to reintroduce the lynx into Kielder Forest and other sites in the UK, on the grounds that it used to live here hundreds of years ago before being driven out by human development.
They claim that the lynx would present no danger to humans and that they will curb the deer population.
So killing members of one species by exposing them to a new predator is ok, but culling them is not
I can understand wanting to conserve a species in an environment where they are already living, but reintroducing a long-gone species without knowledge of the consequences seems rather risky and a bit of a vanity project.
It seems that Northumberland County Council take a dim view too as the Trust has been refused permission.

Grey squirrels do a lot of damage to woodland - particularly young trees. I will probably get death threats for this but I have eaten a grey squirrel shot by my grandson - it was very tasty.