FAQ: What are the success criteria for the project?
FAQ: What are the success criteria for the project?
The project needs to show a steady or expanded distribution of red squirrels in key areas. Because habitat enhancement is a long-term activity whose changes may only become apparent after two or three decades, we will concentrate on showing how red squirrel populations respond in areas where we have carried out grey squirrel control. At the same time we need to show how the grey squirrel populations (the main threat to red squirrels) have changed in response to the control effort.
Our success criteria:
1. Red squirrels occupy the same or a greater area at the end of the project as shown by:
i) surveys of presence/absence in key areas conducted early in and towards the end of the project.
ii) casual sightings by the public from areas known to support red squirrels at the start of the project and from areas previously not known to support red squirrels . Please report your sightings at one of the online squirrel recording sites:
2. Grey squirrels occupy a smaller area and in lower numbers at the end of the project as shown by:
i) Reduced numbers caught in traps or no grey squirrels caught in traps where previously grey squirrels were caught.
ii) surveys of presence/absence in key areas conducted early in and towards the end of the project.
iii) reduced or no casual sightings by the public from areas known to support grey squirrels at the start of the project. Please report your sightings at one of the online squirrel recording sites:
The project also needs to show that our engagement with landowners in securing long-term agreements to undertake ongoing grey squirrels control either voluntarily or with Scottish Rural Development Programme funding where they still have grey squirrels on their land, or are in a state of vigilance and prepared to undertake control should grey squirrels appear or reappear on their land. Hand-in-hand with this it would be useful to show that an understanding of the need for grey squirrel control is widespread in rural areas and embedded in rural life. However, although demonstrating this would not be easy, and evidence is likely to be anecdotal of from supporting evidence, such as an increase in the number of people trained to operate traps to our standards or otherwise involved in project activities.
We would also like to be able to show that the techniques and requirements of how to manage habitats for red squirrels are widely understood and new projects to improve habitats accordingly are under way. This might be done by looking at the number of woodland grants taken up by landowners in our project areas.
