How to control pest squirrels: drey poking 

Eat them

I use pneumatic charged rifle pellets in 0.177. Shooting them in the head kills them instantly, I mean INSTANTLY!!! The disruption of the cervical spinal cord makes their lower limbs appear to be running. The key to that phenomenon is that there are nerves in the lower spine that continue to discharge until the oxygen is depleated. Nothing really fancy.

6:31 Shows a box of 12 gauge shells. Most likely birdshot or target loads. Seems like overkill, but they're Brits so they're probably awful shots and need as much of a spray of lead as possible to hit anything at all.

@@AlpacaButts "Brits" were making guns long before most countries! The longest distance singer kill was by a Brit in Afghanistan!

S says a man from a country that has no gun laws.. fuckwit..

@@AlpacaButts what an arsehole, why dont you take some tips from "brits" when it comes to shooting that includes etiquette and skill.

Here in the UK, the invasive grey squirrel does huge amounts of damage to trees, and they carry a disease that our native reds have no immunity to and has almost wiped them out .

A few reasons really, they're essentially an invasive species... Grey Squirrels aren't native to the UK, they came to us from the US and they're wiping out our native Red Squirrels. Greys reproduce faster than our native Red Squirrels, they can carry a disease (Parapoxvirus) that doesn't harm them but will kill Red Squirrels. Greys eat Acorns when they are green, whereas Reds only eat them when they've ripened, so they decimate the Reds food source. Aside from the effect on the Red Squirrels they also strip and eat bark of young trees which can damage or kill the tree, so it prevents the production of quality timber. They also prey on bird nests, so may be contributing to a decline in some species of birds. All in all, invasive species are nearly always a bad thing, they disrupt the natural ecosystem of an area and can have devastating effects.

They’re vermin, invasive species, and need to die

In all likely hood, no, but it has been shown that of a stratified red squirrel protection plan is put in place: basically removing all the greys and aiding the reds, in certain areas and small pockets of the country we can definitely boost the numbers of the native population.

I really wish I can answer yes but that would require a country-wide effort to hunt squirrels but, "Aww, squirrels are so cute" or "Just give up. They're here to stay now". Bloody lazy gits don't care about our animals and rather cater to our red killers.

sadly the pine martins eat the grey and red squirrels, once the greys are killed by human intervention the pine martins will have to eat more reds.

You drown squirrels?

Drown them? Seems cruel

Because not only squirrels use them. Abandoned dreys are used by all sorts of wildlife, including birds.

Not in the middle of winter mate

Most do

They strip bark off trees ,kill young chicks and steal bird's eggs..Plus they pass squirrel pox to the native red squirrel.

@@paulb6716 so it's only done to grey squirrel nests ?

@@michaelspinelli6567 Yes the red squirrel is native to Britain.. There are only 140,000 reds compared to 2.7 million grey.

@@paulb6716 interesting... how do the nests differ?

@@michaelspinelli6567 I had to look this one up! Red squirrel dreys are usually like small grassy balls.Greys are larger and made more with sticks. The point is there are only very small pockets of the UK that have reds living in them like my home area the Isle of Wight as greys haven't been able to cross the water!

Because lots of wildlife species use abandoned squirrel dreys, that's why.

Soon.

They are not native to this country, they have almost wiped out the native Red squirrel by carrying diseases that the red squirrels cant deal with, they also cause massive damage farmland

@@pluffer96 thats nature i love squirrels and if i saw someone trying to kill one id kill them

They chew the bark off trees ,which then opens the trees to disease, branches fall off making the tree unsafe then possibly having to fell what was a good healthy tree .they also will take fledglings, not to mention carrying squirrel pox ,and destroying the native red squirrels.

@@andrewmilne1738 🤣🤣

@@richardchadwick4028 nature is cruel at times 😁

3 year old comment, I know but for anyone that reads this now: If you drey poke in the winter, there are no kits because squirrels breed in spring. Though drey poking would be very effective in spring because not only you would kill the parent squirrels, their babies are culled too. Though I'm not sure how you would humanely dispatch them but I'd definitely like to know. The only idea I have is get a large knife and chop their heads off but there must be a less barbaric way of doing it.

master blob I do a lot of work with my uncle to eradicate them from north wales

troodleroop 1 what are your throughts about conducting a national cull?

Is it not grey ?

Grey squirrel hunting is allowed all year round. There's no way that we can get rid of greys from the UK by hunting alone though, there's far too many of them, and not nearly enough people interested in shooting them.

rjfc2 Put a £1 price for each head, the squirrels will be gone in less than 5 years....and people will make beer money to boot.

I doubt it. There would be no way anyone could make a living on £1 per head.

rjfc2 -They dont need to make a living, just enough of a reward to make it worth while and be able to buy beer at the end of the week.

Giving someone a fiver to spend the day shooting is no incentive at all. People who enjoy it do it anyway.

Squirrels don't breed during winter.

@@archiehdhood1851 oh

@@user-ry3qc3cc9r Good point though - timing is important and no-one wants a situation where the females have young in nursery dreys. I'm running a session in my woods next week. I don't want to leave it too late because last Autumn was a mast crop with acorns everywhere. The squirrels will think that's the norm and will breed early this year - quite possibly at the end of Feb. Indeed they will probably have a second litter later in the year as well. The problem is that the resulting huge numbers will get a nasty surprise when there isn't the food they were expecting, and that's when they'll start raiding birds' nests to eat the eggs and young, and ring-barking or harming trees in search of sap, which lets in disease and can stunt growth. Eventually there simply won't be enough food for them all and, sadly, most of the squirrels will die slowly of diesease and starvation. Better to prevent that situation by getting on top of the numbers now.

@@robertstallard7836 yeah i guess

@@user-ry3qc3cc9r My woods are on the edge of a pine marten release area and hopefully over the next few years they'll move into it. They've been (re)introduced specifically to deal with the grey squirrel problem. They can't be the answer on their own, but the idea is that their release, combined with a comprehensive shooting and trapping programme will eradicate the greys and allow the re-introduction of the native reds that can live symbiotically in their native habitat. That's happened in Ireland and it is hoped to replicate that with a nationwide pine marten reintroduction project that started in Wales and will slowly move up the country to join with existing red areas in Northumberland and Scotland.

We will take the grey squirrels back if you took your starlings from here

It is allowed - nay, encouraged! Indeed, it's an offence to release a trapped grey squirrel or to keep one as a pet. The government used to give a bounty for every grey squirrel tail handed in.

Airguns would be an easy and quiet solution.

@@WhalesWilly Yes, you can do that as well, especially by setting up a feeder.

We used to set up bird hoppers on the farm, Not for birds, but to bait the Greys. Then turn them into pink mist.

Very informative video, excellent land management 👍

Demonetized?

@@johnmcelroy8198 i know how my comment sounds. I love watching DEMOLITION RANCH along with the air gun videos on RU-vid. I'd prefer RU-vid left the harmless channels alone. Then if they are informed of individuals that are just out doing sadistic things Target them fine... But recently air Gunner videos were Targeted. Like my man Giles from the AIRGUN SHOW..... But i suspect the videos done by the ppl that have produced this one are likely left alone, because it's a game keeper who i might add were killing squirrels systematically like freaking NAZI genocide. But if somebody like squirrel Hunter channel shows or depicts squirrel hunting, they get attacked by RU-vid. Hunting is hunting! The beef/chicken/fish from the store were alive till someone decided there was a need to end that animals life for humans to eat. It's very much do bears poop in the woods, no, cuz no one sees it. Like when you were a child and the laundry fairy brought your clothes. Just because you DON'T see it happen DOES NOT mean it DOES NOT happen. I'm a Hunter i hunt for FOOD, at the same time i enjoy the marksmanship aspect. Favoritism. One eye is blind while the other winks. Just to be clear much is lost in translation, from spoken to typed it Visa versa. I'm not directing this at you whomever you maybe, just annoyed with what is happening. Cable sucks, so i watch ONLINE. But looks like the GESTAPO as far as this situation goes are bent on ruining it for all. I know it's very wordy, just being clear.

Nthgree..thank for the clarification. Just wasn't sure. I'm a fan of SHC too

@@AlpacaButts Do you not know grammar and/or punctuation?

Lol your so dumb, this is conservationism. It is done to protect native species that are decimated by these squirrels.