Canis lupus hominis

Posted in golden retriever, Miley | Tagged golden retriever | 4 Comments

4 Responses

1. on November 17, 2013 at 6:34 am chervilmeadow

   Evidence of squirrel damage on two of those saplings..! Incidentally, a cold air stream directly from the Arctic spells the end of Britain’s mild autumn today, but you know what they say “weather is only what we wear” Yeah right!

   
   
   • on November 17, 2013 at 7:14 am retrieverman

     Well gray squirrels are native to the Eastern US, unlike the UK. This is a bad mast year, and Das Graue Eichhörnchen must eat something, eh?

     
     
2. on November 17, 2013 at 8:56 am chervilmeadow

   Well, right now grey squirrels are the most visible animals in our woods as they spend all daylight hours caching this year’s great acorn and nut crop – and they are in particularly pristine coat. The, now, millions of greys have long been defacto ‘natives’ to these shores just as are the humans of immigrant origin. Incidentally, under EU rules, in January it will be legal for the Bulgarian and Roumanian roma to enter Britain to join the 200,000 already here. I was surprised to hear yesterday that sensible positive steps are now being taken in parts of rural France to integrate their Roumanian roma immigrants. French and Roumanian languages are fairly close which must help speed up the process in France.

   But getting back to the squirrels – paradoxically, years ago before the greys had arrived, their close cousins the reds were judged to be such a nuisance damaging trees that there was a bounty on their tails, especially up in Scotland. Now of course the remaining reds are our treasured natives which we all want to protect and only the greys are perceived as a bit of a problem because they damage trees and because they spread squirrel pox to reds which unlike the greys did not evolve to resist it.

   The practice here when planting young saplings is to protect them from deer and squirrels with a sleeve of bio degrading plastic. Squirrel damage after the trees have become well established does not usually prove fatal to most of any damaged trees, but it does prove fatal to a fair number nevertheless.

   
   
3. on November 17, 2013 at 9:49 am massugu

   The deer here are particularly destructive–due to overpopulation. I just this morning fenced in another Leyland Cypress and a hybrid holly that had received their less than tender attention. I’m hoping to root the holly sprigs (they just bite them off vice actually eating them) this winter. I’ve also noted damage to the trunks & lower limbs of some of my mature Leyland Cypress as well. (In the past they’ve gnawed the trunks of my Lindens to get at the sap and the cambium.) Looks like I’ll have to call animal control and get them moving on some population control measures.

   
   

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