Just returned from a two week trip to the United Kingdom and learnt a bit more about the threats to the United Kingdom's only native squirrel - the red squirrel. The loch Lommond and The Trossachs National Park in Scotland, which we visited, is one of the areas where the red squirrel is still common, and was just spectacular with the autumn colours. The red squirrel has been displaced over a large part of its range by the exotic grey squirrel from North America, introduced in 1870. There are two main causes for the red squirrel decline. The larger grey squirrel out competes the red squirrel for food resources, the grey squirrels being able to digest unripened acorn and hazel nuts therefore reducing the availability of this food source to red squirrels. Secondly, the grey squirrels carry the parapox virus lethal to the red squirrels. It is not one way traffic though as red squirrels are conifer cone specialists able to strip away the scales to get at the seeds.