Playing God…. March 1, 2017

I opened the paper this morning to see Prince Charles championing the cause of the red squirrel.

The latest theory is to feed the grey squirrel with a contraceptive in a paste form which will reduce populations by as much as 90%.

The theory is that the contraceptive will be secreted in a type of Nutella paste which the squirrel’s will love – all hidden in a box that only the grey squirrels will be able to access. The drug traps will be set in areas of major grey squirrel populations and will massively reduce their numbers from a quoted 3.5 million down to fewer than 300,000.

The grey squirrel causes damage to trees and out competes our native red squirrel – as well as being very much a nuisance in gardens throughout the UK – eating food left for birds and generally causing damage and mayhem wherever they breed…

The contraceptive has been developed by the governments Animal and Plant Health Agency in York with initial funding from DEFRA.

Sounds like a good idea to me…??  …BUT …then again… I hate grey squirrels and wage war on them every year.

What I’m not too keen on is talk that this could be used on badgers and wild boar –

I have a niggling feeling that we are messing around with something here that could have far reaching consequences??

I’m sure the experts have thought all this through but…. what happens if our native dormouse gets a hankering for the Nutella contraceptive?? What happens if the animals that eat the squirrels get a dose of the contraceptive?? What happens if the contraceptive enters the food chain and we all stop having the ability to breed….

What happens is some smart arse decides that people on an income of less than 100K shouldn’t be allowed to breed??

Maybe the Royal family will be the only family able to re-produce…

Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh

Now I do know that I was very critical of the whole bio-control of Japanese Knotweed situation lead by Dick Shaw from CABI. I was also VERY WRONG in my criticism …so I will keep my comments short and brief until I can find out more… but I do feel that whenever we try and act like Gods …things tend to go t**s up.

Watch this space.

Mike C