Current status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 2 July 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-19612 by Mairi Gougeon on 13 July 2023, what it is doing to reduce the number of red squirrel kits that are killed, and what its prediction is for the number of killed red squirrel kits in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 based on the current felling and harvesting programme.
Forestry and Land Scotland reduce impacts on red squirrel by scheduling operations to avoid the breeding season in areas that are thought to hold higher than average densities of red squirrels. Prior to any harvesting operation, a pre-operational survey is carried out to assess the extent of use of the felling coupe by red squirrels, and to locate squirrel dreys.
If red squirrels are identified as being present, various mitigation may be enacted, such as retaining drey trees, avoiding areas with dreys until after the breeding season, and directional felling to slowly usher adults and kits into adjacent stands. During operations machine operators are required to report any dreys felled with kits in them. No such reports have been made in 2024 or 2023 seasons.
It is impossible to know with certainty whether in fact any kits are killed each year , for example if unobserved dreys are felled, which are consequently unreported by machine operators. FLS have therefore calculated a hypothetical maximum assuming worst case scenarios in all assumptions. Based on the current felling and harvesting programme, the potential numbers for a) 2024 and b) 2025, is:
a) 903 (or 1.2% of the estimated population of kits in Scotland)
b) 876 (or 1.17% of the estimated population of kits in Scotland)
This will change as the programme is adjusted and finalised.
Only a small proportion of the theoretical deaths of squirrel kits due to forest operations would be extra mortality, as over 70% of young kits naturally die during their first winter.