Last updated 11:35, Thursday, 24 April 2008

I READ with interest your article ‘MP Calls For Inquiry To Save Red Squirrels’ (News & Star, April 19), in which David MacLean MP shows a poor understanding of the facts regarding the interaction of red and grey squirrels.

A red squirrel

He is quoted as saying “Within weeks of grey squirrels arriving in a wood, the reds die out.”

This is simply not the case, and there is plenty of scientific research, published by well known bodies (including the Forestry Commission), which completely contradicts what David MacLean says.

Red and grey squirrels have been known to co-exist for periods of 20 years, so it is not acceptable for a man in his position to state that reds will die out within weeks of grey squirrels appearing. He should do his research better.

There is no justification at all for this desire to trap and kill greys.

Everything that has been said against them is propaganda by nativeness- obsessed conservationists, who are so confused that they don’t even know red squirrels in this country aren’t even native by the conservationists’ definitions.

If David MacLean and any of your readers would like to get the facts about red and grey squirrels, all of which are from the best scientific research available, please read the website grey-squirrel.org.uk

NEIL MACMILLAN

Meikle Boturich

nr Balloch

Dunbartonshire