There has been news on the grapevine lately of Prince Charles calling for the eradication of the non-native grey squirrel in Britain. The grey squirrel was introduced as a species from North America about 100 years ago.
It was an ornamental species that went wild and has since competed against the native red squirrels for survival and domination of Britain's woodlands. Not only is the grey squirrel bigger, more robust and breeds faster, it has a secret weapon against the reds. It is armed with a biological weapon, a virus called parapox that has decimated the red squirrel population by as much as 80 per cent.
The greys also have a tendency to scratch deep into the bark of hardwood trees, such as the old English oak, killing them.
Prince Charles, being a rather large landowner, has a vested interest in ridding Britain of the greys while preserving the English reds.
The British media has taken up the call for arms against the grey squirrels and has reported various ingenious and macabre ways people have come up with to drum up enthusiasm for culling the grey squirrel population.
One of the ideas, from a company called Patchwork Pate, is to turn grey squirrels into squirrel pate. The owner of the company, apparently furious with the squirrels for stealing chicken feed from her store, decided one day to turn a captured grey specimen into a wildlife pate. Shockingly, the p?t? has taken off among the red-squirrel-loving community.