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The Boogyman red
The Boogeyman Red: How the Red Squirrel Was Demonised Long Before the Grey
It is often claimed that red squirrels were always beloved while grey squirrels have “always” been the villain. This is historically false. In Britain, the red squirrel once held the position of national boogeyman, long before the grey squirrel ever arrived.
For centuries, the red squirrel was widely denounced as a pest, vermin, tree-wrecker, crop thief, egg-eater, and destroyer of pheasants. Gamekeepers, foresters and farmers routinely persecuted the red squirrel “every which way,” driving the species to near-extinction in many regions.1
A 1927 natural history text described reds in harsh terms:
“It invades gardens, and will take peas from their pods as cleanly as a man. In spring it turns carnivorous and eats eggs and young birds. It damages trees by biting bark and preventing the flow of sap.”2
Even earlier, in Gloucestershire, the squirrels described as “mercilessly shot” for damaging young larch and fir shoots were red squirrels, not greys.3
The intensity of this persecution was extraordinary.
Between 1900 and 1925, red squirrel numbers collapsed under human culling, with organised eradication campaigns persisting in the New Forest until 1927.4
Long before greys were widespread, rural Britons routinely referred to the red as a “fast-breeding vermin species no different from rats, mice and rabbits.” Reports of “squirrels destroying young pheasants” in 1890 and “squirrels eating young pheasants” in 1912 both refer to reds, not greys.1
The Scottish Highlands — today marketed as the iconic “home of the red squirrel” — tell a similar story. By 1800, red squirrels had been effectively exterminated across much of the region through deforestation and pest control. In the early 1900s, the species was again slaughtered on mass as forestry expanded.5
Historians now recognise that the modern idolisation of red squirrels is a recently invented tradition. As Coates writes:
“How an animal once widely regarded as a common pest was converted into a treasure is another example of a fairly recently invented tradition. There was no pre-grey harmony between Britons and the reds.”1
Even natural-history writer Frank Finn noted that humans were far more destructive to wildlife than red squirrels ever were, adding that reds themselves were “far less sociable” than often assumed.6
Grey Squirrel Protection UK is colour-blind.
We recognise all squirrels — red, grey, black or white — as sentient, intelligent, magical beings who deserve to live free from persecution. No species should be demonised to justify cruelty.
References
1. Coates, Peter. Squirrel Nation: Reds, Greys and the Meaning of Home. Reaktion Books, 2023, pp. 41–42.
2. Jennison, George. Natural History – Animals. Curator of Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, 1927.
3. M.R. “Destructive Squirrels.” Letter to the Editor, Country Life, XXVII/702 (18 June 1910): p. 926.
4. Animal Aid (2017). The History of Grey Squirrels in Britain.
https://www.animalaid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/historygreysquirrels.pdf
5. Holmes, Matthew. “The perfect pest: natural history and the red squirrel in nineteenth-century Scotland.” Archives of Natural History 42.1 (2015): 113–125.
6. Finn, Frank. “Public Pets in Regent’s Park.” The Graphic, LXXXII/2134 (22 October 1910): p. 638.
The vast majority of organisations are informing the public that grey squirrels cannot be released if they are trapped, and that they must be killed. This is false. If the squirrel is trapped (for example, in a bird feeder, on your property, or in netting in a park), free it. The law still permits freeing grey squirrels and releasing them where they were found. www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/wildlife/squirrels/injured
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