00:00Red squirrels are a familiar part of Northumberland's wildlife,
00:03but their future at Wellington was put at risk when Storm Arwen damaged woodland in 2021.
00:09Sightings became rare for a number of years. Now rangers are recording a marked increase with a
00:14young squirrel also spotted. The recoveries involve changes to the way the estate manages
00:19its woodland and the way they control grey squirrels. I've been working here for about
00:24two and a half years and certainly for the first year or so of that there were no red squirrels
00:29here at all in the home woods around where the mansion is where we are now. But that all changed
00:35a year ago last October we saw the first red around about where we're standing now
00:40and since then we've had pretty regular sightings so it's a great sign that they've established again.
00:46They've always been around on the wider estate but I think yeah it was certainly a big a big blow
00:52to
00:53to the habitat of Storm Arwen and of course the other main thing which we're concerned about here
00:58is the ever-increasing grey squirrel presence which we try and keep on top of.
01:05Rangers say the recovery has been helped by woodland management and increased control of non-native
01:10grey squirrels. The grey squirrel population began to thrive after Storm Arwen because they can survive
01:16in a wider range of woodland. Well it's very significant I'd say grey squirrels are the number one
01:23factor in the in the declining number of reds that we've got across across the country.
01:28So yeah managing the grey squirrels is is very significant they're a bigger kind of more powerful
01:35animal they'll dominate the habitat and they also pass on something called the squirrel pox which isn't
01:42that doesn't affect the greys but is generally very lethal to the reds. So controlling the squirrel
01:48population is a really significant factor in what we're doing and trying to increase the reds.
01:54I think it's I think the number one reason that we're seeing more reds is because we are keeping
01:59on top of the grey squirrel population. I think I think that is the number one reason. So we're certainly
02:06looking to restore nature across the estate restore lots of connected up habitats and the pine
02:12martin project is a big part of that. Well we've got an established population that we know of of
02:17pine martins in Kielder so we're trying to naturally encourage them to to come down, putting up nest
02:23boxes all over the estate and yeah woodland is a really important habitat for lots of different
02:29animals so we're trying to create as many woodland areas as possible. There's been a lot of evidence
02:34particularly in Ireland recently of pine martins being reintroduced and really suppressing the
02:40grey population and red numbers have really really gone up so we're hopeful that long term that'll
02:44really help us as well. Because as well as regular sightings we've had over the past year the fact
02:48we've seen at least one juvenile is is is great evidence that you know that the reds are comfortable
02:54and the the you know that they've got enough habitat and resources to breed successfully.
