Scotland mulls squirrel birth control
More good stuff out of Edinburgh, Scotland…
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Dec. 8 (UPI) — Scottish officials hope contraception can bring the numbers of a U.S. import, the gray squirrel, under control, allowing the native red squirrel to survive.
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive Council told The Scotsman that experiments with a “fertility control agent” are being done on a number of species. He said the method has been used successfully in the United States.
The gray squirrels would be captured in humane traps and injected with a contraceptive.
The newspaper joked that the gray squirrels, like the U.S. soldiers stationed in Britain during World War II, are “over here, over-cute and over-sexed.” They have been so fertile that in Scotland there are estimated to be 3 million grays and only 160,000 reds.
[via United Press International]
