Hi Dave, Darren,
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that anyone should feel bad about pest control.
I think that there is a bias within these pages toward commercial management which is very strange. Most small woodland owner's plots are much too small to provide an income. I think Woodlands..co.uk say somewhere on their site that the plots they sell are too small to support you but they need to use bigger letters.
If you bought your eight acres or whatever to become a forester and live off the land then I am sure that you already understand the importance of effective pest control to protect your investment.
If anyone were to stray onto this site who perhaps bought their amenity wood for the purpose of leisure and recreation and might be wondering if they have to kill the animals then please let me reassure you that no you don't, not unless you want to.
Wildlife generally adds pleasure and value to amenity woodland. It is different from a commercial prospect.
You can shoot things if you want to. Surprisingly, it won't do any harm. Squirrels and rabbits live at a density that the woodland will support and if you shoot some you create room for others and the foxes will only eat them otherwise.
This can be counter productive because you will bring new animals in competing for territory and may end up with more than you started with. It is just something you can do if you want to.
If your wood is recreational then you have nothing to fear from the squirrels. Dead wood is actually more valuable in terms of biodiversity than live wood.
If you walk around your wood and look at the damage that has been done then you should realise that what you are looking at is the sum total of all the damage that squirrels have ever done, some of it has been there for years. They never tidy up.
Squirrels have been in the woods for a long time and have integrated themselves into the woodland ecology. They play a part in creating habitat and they play a role in the food chain. They have a valuable role to play in amenity woodland.
Let me give you an example of another pest. In the mid 1950's we introduced myxomatosis to the rabbit population and destroyed 95% of our wild rabbits, Great but no more rabbit pie. We lost huge numbers of buzzards and other predators and also a lot of chalk and downland where the rabbits had been controlling the shrub layer, it became over run. This had a knock on affect with our butterflies who lost important habitat and that of course hit the birds.
Anyway I am not saying don't shoot squirrels.
If you want to know, do I have to? No, it has nothing to do with managing amenity woodland, it is a commercial thing, your recreational woodland will be much richer for the wildlife.
You enjoy your wood.
Colin
