Grey Squirrels and the Law

The core rule

Releasing One Is an Offence

The grey squirrel is not a native British animal. It was introduced from North America in the nineteenth century and it is listed on Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which is the schedule of species already established here that the law does not want spread any further.

Under section 14 of that Act it is an offence to release into the wild, or to allow to escape, any animal listed on Schedule 9, other than under a licence. That is the whole of it. There is no version of the rule that makes an exception for a squirrel you personally caught in your own loft and would prefer not to kill.

Licences exist in principle, but they are issued for research, conservation and similar purposes. A licence is not available to move a nuisance grey squirrel from a house to a wood, and it never has been.

So once a grey squirrel has been caught, the lawful options do not include letting it go somewhere else. It has to be dispatched.

Photographs on this page are for illustration purposes only.

The welfare rule

And It Has to Be Done Humanely

The second statute is the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996, which makes it an offence to mutilate, kick, beat, impale, stab, burn, drown, crush or asphyxiate any wild mammal with intent to inflict unnecessary suffering.

That is the reason a professional job looks the way it does, and it rules a number of things out. It rules out drowning a trapped animal, which people still suggest. It rules out leaving something in a trap and deciding what to do later. And it is the reason live-capture traps have to be checked frequently — at least once a day, in practice more — because an animal left in a cage without water is suffering whether anyone intended it or not.

Once an animal is in a trap it is arguably under the control of whoever set it, which brings the Animal Welfare Act 2006 into view as well. The practical upshot is the same: setting a trap is taking on a duty, not just placing a box.

Spring traps

Only Approved Types, Only in the Right Place

Traps that kill on contact are governed separately. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act it is an offence to use a spring trap for grey squirrels unless it is of a type approved by order for that species, and unless it is used in the way the order specifies — which usually means inside a natural or artificial tunnel.

Using an unapproved trap, or an approved trap in the wrong setting, is an offence regardless of how well it works. This is the part of the law that most commonly catches out a householder who has bought something online, and it is not a technicality: the approvals exist because the approved traps kill quickly and the unapproved ones frequently do not.

There is no poison

A Clean Test of Whoever You Are Talking To

This one is worth knowing because it is unambiguous.

Warfarin bait was once available for grey squirrels in Britain, used in a hopper designed to exclude other species. Warfarin's approval as an active substance was withdrawn on 31 March 2014, and the remaining product could lawfully be used only until 30 September 2015. Nothing has replaced it.

So there is currently no approved poison for grey squirrels in the UK. If somebody offers to put bait down for your squirrels, one of two things is true: they mean rodent bait and have misidentified the animal, or they are proposing something that is not lawful. Either is a good reason to ring someone else.

The corollary is that this is a trapping job, and trapping takes time. Anyone promising to solve a loft squirrel in a single visit is describing something that does not exist.

Red squirrels

Not a Consideration Here, But Worth Knowing

The red squirrel is a protected native species and the legal position is the reverse: it is an offence to intentionally kill, injure or take one, or to damage or destroy a place it uses for shelter.

There are no wild red squirrels in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire or Hertfordshire, so it does not arise in practice on this patch. It matters as background, though, because it is the reason the grey is treated the way it is. The two do not coexist: greys carry squirrelpox, which they largely survive and reds largely do not, and they out-compete reds for food regardless of disease.

That is the honest context for Schedule 9. The law is not indifferent to the animal in your loft. It has weighed it against a different animal that is losing.

If you object

That Is a Reasonable Position

Some people, having read the above, would rather not have the work done, and that is a legitimate conclusion to reach.

If that is where you land, the honest advice is to spend the money on exclusion instead. Getting the roofline properly closed, at a point in the year when nothing is nesting inside, stops the problem without anything being caught. It is not always possible — if there are dependent young in the loft, sealing up is the worse outcome, not the better one — but where the timing allows it, it is a real option and it is the one we would rather sell you anyway, because it is the part that lasts.

What is not an option is a firm that promises to catch them and let them go. That is worth saying plainly before you book anybody.

Short answers

Squirrel Questions

Going further

Squirrel Guides