Overview
- The government updated its 2014 plan with a five-year programme that offers financial incentives, equipment grants and training for landowners and volunteer managers.
- Research led by the Animal and Plant Health Agency, supported by the UK Squirrel Accord, remains in R&D with landscape‑scale trials of grey‑only feeder mechanisms planned.
- Forestry England will track reintroduced pine martens and assess their impact on grey squirrel numbers, including follow‑up to the Forest of Dean project that released 35 animals between 2019 and 2021.
- Grey squirrels number about 2.7 million and have driven native red squirrels down to roughly 38,900 while spreading squirrel pox and causing an estimated £37 million in annual woodland damage in England and Wales.
- Conservation groups welcomed the policy but urged coordinated, long‑term fieldwork to prevent further red squirrel declines.