The story can be found here.
And before everyone attacks me for making a West Virginia reference, I was born and raised in West Virginia. And yes, I have eaten gray squirrel before. The meat is better than described in the piece, because all the squirrels I’ve eaten were largely consuming hickory nuts.
The red squirrel is a European species of tassel-eared squirrel. It is not resistant to parapoxviruses, but grays are. The grays are thought to carry these viruses and transmit them to the reds, which is one reason why the Brits want to kill them. Further, grays chip bark far worse than reds. This damages British hardwoods, which aren’t as adapted for intense bark-chipping as North American hardwoods are.
I don’t know whether this is true or not, but I have always heard that gray squirrels kill North American red squirrels, which are different species entirely from the European red. I’ve heard that the grays raid their nests, and castrate the male North American reds. I wonder if this same thing might be going on with the war between European reds and Eastern grays. (The North American red is in the genus Tamiascriurus, while the European red and the gray squirell are both in the genus Sciurus.)
Grays are much more adaptable than European reds, so they can live in much closer proximity to man. They can also withstand the felling of the forests better. All of these events have allowed the gray squirrel to thrive with man in several continents, including South Africa.
So to stop the red squirrel plague, British landowners and game keepers are developing a taste for hillbilly food. It’s likely that the status of squirrel meat will increase, especially if it now considered “green” to eat them. I expect that it will be served in all the finest restaurants in Europe, and then, it will eventually catch on here. And to think, the hillbilies have been eating them for centuries, and for the last hundred years, have been derided for it.
Talk about irony.
[…] See my earlier post on the topic. […]
Irony, yeah, but not unheard of. Used to be that lobster was a poor person’s food, too.
I would doubt that reds are castrated by grays but one never knows. The gray is considerably smaller than the American red and would have to be exceedingly brave to enter the home of the red bent on the mission of gnawing off a set of knackers. However….one never knows.
Grays are bigger than American reds.
It’s fox squirrels that are significantly larger.
The American red is also called the fox squirrel and is considerably larger than the gray squirrel. The European red is the small squirrel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Squirrel
No.
A fox squirrel is a relative of the gray squirrel.
Fox squirrel: http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/diversty/soc/wgraysquirrels/graphics/fox_squirrel.jpg
The American red squirrel is about half the size of a gray squirrel: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/red-squirrel.jpg
Fox and gray squirrels are in the genus Sciurus.
Amercan red squirrels are in the genus Tamiasciurus.
We have all three species in West Virginia. The reds are generally found in pine and spruce forests and solitary.
For some reason, these are known as Fairydiddles in West Virginia.
I’m talking about an entirely different squirrel of a more northern distribution than the fox squirrel.