The SSRS initiative has now been running for fifteen months and is a partnership between Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland and the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association. See the map below for the area covered by the project.Grey squirrels are concentrated on Aberdeen City from animals that originated from historical introductions to the city parks.

At present red squirrels are found throughout Aberdeenshire apart from central Aberdeen and other areas with a large grey squirrel population. It is crucial to halt the grey squirrel spread to secure the future of reds in these areas and to prevent greys from invading the Highlands. Crucially, the grey squirrel population here is separate from those elsewhere in Scotland, making eradication in North East Scotland a realistic objective. This is unlikely to be possible within the timescale of the SSRS project but the project aims to set up the processes by which this can be achieved in the future.

Building on earlier trapping efforts funded by Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage, early SSRS project control activity has led to reports of reds returning to areas of Aberdeen city such as Cults, Countesswells and Bieldside – areas where they had not been seen for several years prior to the project.

The challenge now is to build on these promising signs, with a view to ultimately eradicating greys from the region.