We have received some great news for our threatened mid Wales red squirrels. We recently applied to the Welsh Government’s Ecosystem Resilience and Diversity (ERD) fund for financial support on behalf of the Mid Wales Red Squirrel Project, and was successful. We have been offered a grant of just over £60,000 to undertake red squirrel conservation work in the current financial year.

Squirrel by Damien Waters

This follows on from our successful pilot project in 2011-2012 funded by Environment Wales, and will build on the knowledge and work undertaken through that scheme. WTSWW will be working closely with fund administrators CCW, and Huw Denman, both members of the MWRSP, to deliver the conservation work in north east Carmarthenshire, based around the Gwenffrwd and Cothi valleys.

The project work will include undertaking survey work for the presence of both red and grey squirrels, both in the core project area where red squirrels persist and also in the project ‘buffer zone’ where broadleaf woodland and grey squirrels dominate. We will also be undertaking strategic grey squirrel control in key areas where grey squirrels move into the red squirrel area in greatest numbers, helping to reduce the pressure on the red squirrel population.

This is an exciting opportunity to build on our previous conservation work for red squirrels and will hopefully make a very real difference to the red squirrel population in mid Wales.

For more information on the project please contact l.wilberforce@welshwildlife.org and further information on our Mid Wales Red Squirrel Project is available.

The Mid Wales Red Squirrel Project is a partnership project. The partnership includes Carmarthenshire, Powys and Ceredigion County Councils, Forestry Commission Wales, Countryside Council for Wales, the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, Brecknock Wildlife Trust, MISE project, National Trust, private forest managers and interested individuals.