We’ve released 803 squirrels at an airport - here’s why

this is Bratislava airport and it's the site of one of our latest Rew Wilding projects well okay we've not gone crazy just yet it's of course not in the terminal but instead here right next to the busy runways you see this place is home to one of the last remaining populations of an endangered but very cute and crucially very important little animal that few people know about the European [Applause] susic so yeah this is a really strange place for us to run a project I mean look at all this noise look at how busy it is but the fascinating fact that the ground squirrels are thriving here despite declining everywhere else in Europe gives us a really important clue as to what they need to survive and to thrive which is of course why we want to take some ground squirrels from here and drop them off at a brand new place for them to live and that is of course another airport I mean why reinvent the wheel when you can stick to what's working but before we get into all the trapping and releasing I want to properly introduce you to these little roads this is the European sus also known as the European ground squirrel and it is a small ground dwelling mammal that belongs to the spermophilus genus they measure around 20 cm and weigh in at about 300 G so the squirrels they also create habitat for other species like this solitary bee that we can see here uh because the solitary bee for instance it it needs um uncovered Earth to make to make a nest so by having a presence of these squirrels we're also creating habitat for different different species for instance lizards uh will will often hide in the borrows uh bumblebees will also make nests in uh in borrows that are not used anymore so yeah it's a it's a nice uh keystone species they live in big colonies in open grasslands where they keep watch by standing on their back legs much like Mir cats this allows them to communicate any dangered to each other allowing them to stay safe and for this to work they really need to have the short grass so that they can keep visual contact with each other which is why they're so dependent on these open grasslands in a Wilder and more distant past this habitat would have been created by herds of large herbivores which graced down these large open areas then as humans took control of the landscape the ground squirrel managed to continue existing on the edges of agricultural Fields grassy slopes cultivated Meadows and of course pastures this means that up until the 1960s they were thriving and were even considered to be an abundant pest however what happened next threw them off balance and it can only be described as something akin to a cabbage armag a NeverEnding sea of monoculture crops blanketing the landscape with their lack of diversity and their lack of opportunity for anything to live there except for the desired commercial species the squirrels went extinct in places like Germany Poland and Croatia and in other countries their populations declined sharply take Slovakia as an example in less than 50 years the population declined by a whopping 99% this disaster has landed them on the endangered tier on the Ian red list and it is also the reason that an airport is their last Refuge I mean how destroyed is the natural landscape that this place is the last place a species can hide it's quite sad really this whole story reminds me of the cautionary tale of the passenger pigeon that was once the most abundant bird in North America accounting for 40% of all birds but somehow they ended up being shot until there wasn't a single one left we're at a point now where we can step in and avoid the worst but work needs to be done so let's start by looking at their populations there are broadly three meta populations of ground squirrels in the country we have West Slovakia Central Slovakia and chova Rina I'm sorry about that I probably butchered it but it's the best I can do and each of these meta populations is composed of small isolated ground squirrel colonies individually these colonies are under threat and many of them could use with some reinforcements and some additional genetic diversity however we are lucky that in each one of these metapopulations there's at least one potential Colony that is still thriving which can be a donor of these much needed reinforcements for this first year we focused here on the western Slovakia meta population that has Bratislava airport as its main thriving colony to get the work done we are once again working with our amazing Slovak Partners at BR they keep coming up with crazy but brilliant ideas and we are of course Keen to keep funding them the action plan for this year is simple go to the thriving population from Bratislava airport trap them and take them to create five new colonies as well as reinforce 10 existing colonies that are struggling and we'll also be taking some squirrels from five other places where they're also doing well but unfortunately we can't make all of this public because we need to protect the squirrels so for this story we're going to focus focus on the population at Bratislava airport and also the release sites at the other airport the goal with all this is of course to create additional resilience for existing colonies as well as start new ones in places where we know that they have the best conditions and their future is not left to chance and then there's an additional twist the squirrels in the airport Colony have spread to this field here in the adjacent industrial Zone but unfortunately it's scheduled for development so our project has also turned into a Race Against Time to evacuate a 500 strong Colony that lives here and get them safely to a new home we'll be spending around € 13,700 this summer on the traffic and have committed to support this project with 54,000 until 2027 to ensure that this work can be done properly and as usual this funding comes from our Moss Earth members that contribute to our projects every month we've really broadened the range of our work and our projects which now go from the bottom of the ocean to the dry desert and from the cold Icelandic birchwoods to the rainforests of Ecuador all of this work is either set up by our own biologists like Adriana or in close partnership with a small list of carefully selected organizations that do amazing work like BR and by becoming a member you'll be supporting all of it while also staying up toate with the new developments so if that sounds like something you would like to do then please consider heading over to Mossy do earth to learn more now let's go catch some squirrels so these are the life traps that we're using they were made specifically by the zoologists to trap ground squirrels basically how it works the animal goes in and voila essentially we have a tasty little snack for them like this fresh apple and then they decide to nibble at their luxurious breakfast and this small metal piece moves releasing the bigger one that allows the spring to close the door where basically scanning the area with our binoculars and when we once we see this is up we know the that the animal is inside and after a bit of prep the team set the traps right next to their Burrows to give them the ultimate temptation to go in and then it was a waiting game but we didn't have to wait long to catch our first one and after that things really got [Music] going trapping wind really well and you could see that the team knew what they were doing after the squirrels were caught we put them in this transport box here which is especially designed for them so as not to stress them too much and well not all of them were Keen of course but it was for their own good he doesn't want to go in the numbers just kept climbing and the only small mishap was a fugitive that managed to make its Escape while being transferred to the Box so I'll just leave it up to the professionals then so we just did the great job you release the squirrel yes be free be free squirrel maybe maybe we'll catch him on the on the second round or he's I don't think he's going to he's not going to be F about apples no he's not going to get tricked again oh well so 30 to trapped and 20 more to go so next round I joined joed in the afternoon as I was filming at another project in the morning and I was just in time for the last few squirrels of the day how do you feel I mean um a little bit bad for this little guy but I'm excited for what it means for the little guy and where uh it's going to go next I'm sure it'll be a lovely Place probably better than bow house uh the sconto the decathlon the DHL and uh and the airport so we're getting you a a a nice new home at a quieter airport then the next day it was time to go to one of our release sites at a smaller airport yeah so this this airport was supposed to be put up for development uh but the a club uh have notified the State nature conservancy that we have these squirrels here which is now an endangered species so this was uh put as basically as part of the Natura 2000 protected area so now now it's a protected site do they have a a a special code for uh protected airports habitats probably not but it would be funny so this here is the airport where we are releasing the squirrels and I know what you're thinking this uh isn't really the same as Bratislava airport where are the big Jets and the runways the squirrels won't feel at home here you know as they do uh in the Bratislava airports but anyway this is where we are releasing them it's a small local Aviation club and today uh I'm here with dimma and then vvin and M and uh yeah we are going to be releasing some of the squirrels here so they can uh settle into their new home after taking DNA samples to monitor how the new squirrel DNA will mix with the existing population each squirrel is also marked basically the the top hair is a bit lighter than the bottom uh the bottom is quite dark as you can see so we'll make a mark and then uh and then we'll be able to monitor if the squirrel is still still present here or not so also you know making one mark on the right side of the body then the next one can be marked on the left side of the body and like this we can see if the individuals that we've released are still present here now at this point one would think that we could simply release them onto this field and they would find a hole for themselves you know open the doors and let them run but the issue is that they don't know this area yet and they're a little bit panicky right now so they might simply bolt off in the wrong direction across one of these fields and completely missed the colony and the existing Burrows and then never return so we found each squirrel their own hole that met all the necessary requirements so we picked this hole because it's at an angle which means this is an escape hole and it's usually not very deep uh and the animals dig it out to quickly escape the Predators and we know that if it's at an angle it will be not clogged with any hay or anything so so our animal can go inside and uh calm down relax before it comes out and starts to explore its new home and now our triangle squirrel was finally ready to be released into its new [Music] home [Music] and a few releases later this happened it was our first skp this squirrel decided that the hole we gave it wasn't adequate and decided to run for it so at this point it was crucial to catch it again to make sure we got got it into a hole first it tried crawling around until eventually it simply decided to play dead and this gave Irvin the opportunity to channel his inner links w with the squirrel safely back in its hole we completed the rest of the releases and then left a GoPro next to one of the Burrows so we can check on that in a bit this whole process was repeated all summer at a variety of locations and overall we caught and released more than 800 squirrels in this first year Adriana added a bit more context in a post for our members but most of the locations will have to remain private like I mentioned okay now if you want to support these weird but imp F projects then please consider becoming a member at moss. Earth and if that feels like a really big commitment right now then subscribing to the channel is a huge help as well until next time cheers

Channel: Mossy Earth

Views: 893,979

Keywords: Slovakia, Souslik, Ground squirrels, ground squirrel, european ground squirrel, Spermophilus citellus, European souslik, europe nature, rewilding, conservation, Mossy Earth, Slovakia nature, EU nature, EU rewilding, Bratislava, Bratislava airport, Bratislava airport squirrels

Id: L8FGlHpPWdA

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023