City of fur and feather: the animals of medieval London<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nIn the early stages of the Second World War, as global conflict exerted greater pressure on food supplies, a more unusual tactic had supplemented existing efforts to counteract greys. A year after food rationing was imposed in 1940, the Board of Education and Ministry of Food issued pamphlets such as Good Fare in War-Time. Among the recipes for sheep\u2019s head broth and sheep\u2019s heart pie \u2013 not to mention cuts of cow such as clod and shin \u2013 were squirrel pie and squirrel stew. And squirrel-tail soup and grilled squirrel joined stewed rook, roast starling and hedgehog p\u00e2t\u00e9 in They Can\u2019t Ration These<\/em>, a foraging text from 1940. In 1942, an official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) expressed \u201cno doubt whatsoever that grey squirrel (or for that matter any squirrels) would make excellent eating\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/div>\nSquirrel was not entirely alien to British palates. Hunting reds for squirrel pie was a \u201cvery ancient sport among the lower orders\u201d, observed the New Forest\u2019s deputy surveyor in 1901. Yet, as AD Middleton ruminated in his 1931 book about the grey\u2019s spread, \u201cfor some extraordinary psychological reason\u2026 many [British] people who will readily enjoy jugged hare, and swallow oysters with gusto are positively revolted by the thought of eating a grey squirrel en casserole\u201d.<\/p>\n
The squirrel\u2019s interwar reinvention as an \u2018American tree rat\u2019 exacerbated this revulsion, scuppering government attempts to put greys on plates. The most avid consumers in Second World War Britain were GIs from Appalachian states who, however overfed, still craved an authentic taste of home. The homesick GI may have been prepared to pay top dollar for an eastern grey \u2013 up to 5 shillings (around \u00a39 in today\u2019s money), according to Monica Shorten, who succeeded Middleton as Britain\u2019s top sciurologist (scientist of squirrels). Yet for Britons, this market was simply too niche. \u201cThe average countryman,\u201d a Times reporter explained in 1945, \u201ccannot overcome a distaste for \u2018squirrel pie\u2019. He has been told that the grey squirrel is a \u2018tree rat\u2019, and would not dream of eating one.\u201d Nonetheless, some pet owners appreciated them as an untapped reservoir of wartime dogfood.<\/p>\n
Pest or vermin<\/h3>\n After 1945, anti-grey forces turned to a weapon that had been deployed against species deemed pest or vermin for centuries: the bounty payment. After all, not all Britons wanting to quash burgeoning grey populations were anti-grey because they were pro-red.<\/p>\n
They were more concerned about the economic damage greys allegedly inflicted. So, in March 1953, MAF and the Forestry Commission launched \u2018bob a brush\u2019: a bounty of a shilling per tail.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bob a brush\u2019 ramped up the battle, marking central government\u2019s first direct intervention. The Forestry Commission headlined its press release \u2018War on the Grey Squirrel\u2019. Then, in what a reporter dubbed a \u201cnational call-to-arms\u201d, the Treasury doubled the reward from the start of 1956.<\/p>\n
When, in March 1958, MAFF (MAF had become MAFF, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in April 1955) decided to terminate the bounty, \u201cpractical men\u201d (a MAFF scientist\u2019s term) such as gamekeepers and their allies in parliament, were outraged. They demanded reinstatement \u2013 none more vocally than Britain\u2019s stridently pro-bounty prime minister, Harold Macmillan.<\/p>\n
At his sizeable estate, Birch Grove in Sussex, Macmillan pursued an Edwardian country gentleman\u2019s lifestyle \u2013 and pheasant and grouse shooters regarded greys as a serious threat to gamebird chicks. In January 1960, Macmillan fired his opening salvo in a series of exchanges with his MAFF ministers<\/p>\n
A \u201cpersonal minute\u201d to John Hare demanded to know: \u201cWhat is happening about grey squirrels?\u201d Incentivisation, Macmillan\u2019s experience at Birch Grove indicated, had been a roaring success. \u201cIn my part of the country,\u201d the prime minister intoned, \u201cwe had got rid of them all, thanks to your subsidy.\u201d Without the bonus, they were \u201cswarming again\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bob a brush\u2019 was government\u2019s first direct intervention, offering a bounty of a shilling per tail <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div> Hare\u2019s advisers identified food availability as the critical determinant of population dynamics, not whether a bounty existed. This was the opposite of what Macmillan wanted to hear. \u201cWhat are you doing about grey squirrels?\u201d he snapped back. Hare responded: \u201cI am afraid I have again been compelled to accept the scientists\u2019 view.\u201d The prime minister scribbled on Hare\u2019s minute: \u201cWhat do scientists know about squirrels?\u201d<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1960, Macmillan accosted Hare\u2019s successor, Christopher Soames. Grey numbers were \u201cgetting up again\u201d. For the PM, the bounty\u2019s withdrawal was to blame: \u201cWhat do you think?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A fellow country gent (and Winston Churchill\u2019s son-in-law), Soames had no love for greys. His reply included the mollifying
Resigned to failure<\/h3>\n This verdict silenced Macmillan until the spring of 1963, when, despite the preoccupations of sex and spy scandals such as the Profumo Affair, he contacted the Forestry Commission. He wanted to know what it intended \u201cto do about the grey squirrels at
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The prime minister\u2019s personal war against greys underscores the clash between what he called \u201cofficial\u201d squirrel knowledge (in his view, defeatist and resigned to the grey\u2019s occupation of every inch of British soil) and the superior \u201cunofficial\u201d understandings of \u201ccountryfolk\u201d, rooted in lived experience.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nSome rural residents insisted, as late as the 1970s, that greys triumphed in the war they\u2019d started because males castrated (then slayed) their red counterparts, also devouring baby reds. Yet since Middleton\u2019s data-driven national survey of the grey\u2019s distribution (1930\u201331), sciurologists had downplayed direct forms of assault. Instead, they emphasised superior competitiveness, and diseases unrelated to greys that left red populations enfeebled. In short, references to warfare were inappropriate.<\/p>\n
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In fact, notwithstanding Montalbano\u2019s article in the LA Times, it seems that, over the past three decades, the war against the grey squirrel has lost some of its energy. The trade journal Forestry and British Timber may once have described the grey as a \u201cneighbour from hell\u201d, but fewer Britons were now, it seems, inclined to agree.<\/p>\n
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Fiendish climber<\/h3>\n Prime evidence of reputational rehabilitation \u2013 particularly among younger city-dwellers who may never have seen a red in the flesh \u2013 was the success of a Carling Black Label TV advert in 1989. The commercial showed a local grey squirrel making short work of a fiendishly difficult assault course bristling with Fort Knox-like defences \u2013 at the end of which lay a birdfeeder packed with hazelnuts. Accompanied by the soundtrack to the TV drama Mission: Impossible, and concluding with the catchphrase \u201cI bet he drinks Carling Black Label\u201d as the squirrel feasted triumphantly on the hazelnuts, the advert scooped awards (the Golden Break Advertising Awards, Best Performance by an Animal category, to be precise) and showcased the grey\u2019s breathtaking agility and ingenuity.<\/p>\n
The grey squirrel had been cast as \u201cthe neighbour from hell\u201d. But now fewer Britons agreed <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div> Even some of the bird-feeding folk on the frontline of the one-sided back garden contest couldn\u2019t help admiring their furry foe\u2019s brazen fearlessness. For increasing numbers of Brits, it didn\u2019t matter that the only squirrel in town was grey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Time\u2019s passage blurs awareness of a species\u2019 origins. Does the grey\u2019s success in Britain\u2019s arboreal landscape (there are now an estimated 2.7 million in Britain, compared with just 287,000 reds) count for more than the technicality of where it came from? As the 150th anniversary of 1876 approaches, is it time to think the previously unthinkable: that the grey squirrel is a more suitable animal icon for 21st-century Britain than the seldom-seen red?<\/p>\n
Environmental journalist Patrick Barkham posed this very question 10 years ago in BBC Wildlife magazine: \u201cWhat better symbol of modern Britain than an exotic newcomer?\u201d The brown hare or horse chestnut might fit the bill. But \u201cone of the most successful introductions, the grey squirrel, was probably too controversial a candidate,\u201d Barkham mused. A decade later, is it finally time to bow to the all-conquering powers of the American \u2018tree rat\u2019 and love the grey squirrel?<\/p>\n The red terror<\/h4>\nThe native squirrel hasn\u2019t always been the object of Britons\u2019 affections<\/h6>\n In 1890, a Field magazine reader was so irritated by the phenomenon of squirrels eating \u201cyoung pheasants\u201d that he picked up a pen and composed a letter of complaint. But the squirrels he was bemoaning weren\u2019t grey. They were red.<\/p>\n
Long before the introduction of the grey in 1876, most rural dwellers had no time for the native squirrel, which they usually called the \u2018common\u2019 (or \u2018brown\u2019) squirrel. Sciurus vulgaris leucourus<\/em> was widely viewed as a fast-breeding vermin species akin to rats, mice or rabbits \u2013 and gamekeepers, foresters and farmers hunted them accordingly.<\/p>\nBy 1800, in northern Scotland, a combination of pest control and deforestation had driven the red squirrel to the edge of extinction. The population did mount a recovery, before being slaughtered again \u2013 this time falling victim to an association of subscription-paying estates and timber interests. In 1903, the year that Beatrix Potter\u2019s Tale of Squirrel Nutkin first appeared, the Highland Squirrel Club began paying a bounty of 3d per tail, rising to 6d in 1940 (equiva- lent to roughly a pound today). By the time it folded in 1946, the club had overseen the killing of 102,900 squirrels.<\/p>\n
All in all, it\u2019s a sobering reminder that today\u2019s universally adored red has not always benefited from such vigorous efforts to protect and revive it.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div> <\/section>
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Peter Coates is emeritus professor of American and environmental history at the University of Bristol. His latest book is Squirrel Nation: Reds, Greys and the Meaning of Home<\/em> (Reaktion, 2023)<\/strong><\/p>\nThis article was first published in the February 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n The grey squirrel\u2019s domination of Britain\u2019s woodland over the past 150 years has enraged everyone from gamekeepers to prime ministers. Peter Coates discovers how the \u2018American tree rat\u2019 became the furry mammal that Britons loved to hate <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":34336,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"12"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys.jpg",2235,1342,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-300x180.jpg",300,180,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-768x461.jpg",768,461,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-1024x615.jpg",800,480,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-1536x922.jpg",1536,922,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/03\/britains-squirrel-wars-the-150-year-battle-between-reds-and-greys-2048x1230.jpg",2048,1230,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The grey squirrel\u2019s domination of Britain\u2019s woodland over the past 150 years has enraged everyone from gamekeepers to prime ministers. Peter Coates discovers how the \u2018American tree rat\u2019 became the furry mammal that Britons loved to hate","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/34335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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