An island in southern England is to be used fora squirrel Hansen’s disease experimentation . Only strike to be infect red squirrel in 2014 , the undertaking aims to expend the island setting as a thoroughgoing rude laboratory in which to study how the disease impacts the creatures in the natural state . Symptoms of the disease include swell and the personnel casualty of fur from their face , ears , and foot , and it is hoped that by see how the disease spreads , then something can be done to prevent more infection .
The researchers , from the University of Edinburgh and work with the National Trust and Dorset Wildlife Trust , suspect that the disease , make bythe bacteriumMycobacterium lepromatosis , has actually been present in the population for some sentence now , though it has only recently been detected . Brownsea Island , on which the experiments will take place , is exposed to the public and will continue so . Despite the bacterium causing the disease in the squirrel being close related to that which causes the most common tune of Hansen’s disease in humans , the biologists say that the endangerment to masses visiting is “ paltry . ”
Previously , the independent threat to the survival of the fittest of the native red squirrels in the U.K. has been from the invading eastern gray squirrel . First introducedinto the country from North America in 1876 when a pair were resign in Cheshire , northwest England , the bauble of the animal soon became fashionable within Victorian circles . Five million of the creatures afterward , and they are now deemed a very serious threat to the native red ink , whom the grays outcompete .
large and more aggressive , they easily challenge the smaller red ink and beat them to nutrient and nesting spot . But they also harm the native species in another way : they gestate squirrelpox . While the virus is not deadly to the gray , if left untreated the disease has a 100 percentage mortality rate among the reds . This , coupled with being outcompeted , has hammered the ruby-red squirrel universe so that now only between 120,000 and 140,000 of them remain in the U.K. , of which 75 percent reside in Scotland .
It is vital that the freshly recognized leprosy find in the crimson squirrels is , therefore , translate before it can seriously affect their numbers further . The project aimsto monitor the 200 or so cherry squirrel that hold up on the isolated island , by catch them in humanist cakehole and then test them for the bacterium and other health problems . They will then see how the disease spreads among the squirrels and what , if any , impact it has .
