A significant fruit of RSST's broad, collaborative, and all-inclusive approach is the five-year programme of research into
fertility control of the grey squirrel population at Defra's National Wildlife Management Centre (NWMC) laboratories at
the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), now in its fourth year having successfully met its objectives thus far.
There is a close correlation between the distribution means being pioneered by this research and distribution of a
successful squirrel pox vaccine to the red population when this becomes available. Meanwhile a safe, effective,
commercially available, and affordable means of fertility control offers a non-lethal supplement to shooting and trapping
greys in those areas where overpopulation is causing displacement into already threatened red habitats as well as
devastation of native woodland, which will have disastrous consequences for biodiversity unless checked. A grant of
£120,000 was made to APHA in the period from money set aside for this purpose. RSST is taking the leading part in the
UK Squirrel Accord's fundraising campaign to raise £1 million over 5 years.
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