Until recently very little was known about the genetic makeup of red squirrels populations in Wales. All that has changed, and thanks in part to funding by the Friends of the Anglesey Red Squirrels.
Recent research by Wildlife-DNA-Services of Bangor University has revealed that there is a bloodline of red squirrels that is native to Wales. These genetic types have, to date, not been found anywhere else in the UK.
Analysis of samples taken from the remains of animals collected twenty years ago from within broadleaved woodland sites on Anglesey, has shown that the island has lost much of the gentic diversity which was once present. What remains is a single haplotype (in simple terms one female bloodline) found in the Pentaeth forest population. All of the island genetic types are closley related and they also match those still found today in Mid Wales. This means that if squirrels from Mid Wales where collected and released onto Anglesey, we would be able to re-establish the historical population type.
The Bangor University team have also been involved with the red squirrel reintroduction work going on in Newborough forest. They have sampled the animals that have been used in the release program, and they then created a genetic profile for each of them. This allowed the reintroduction project to create an extremley diverse population.
The Newborough forest population is of course not genetically the same as the population in Pentraeth. However, the two populations are divorced from each other by 20km of largely open ground. And it is very unlikely that animals will ever meet and therefore that the native and introduced genes will mix. In short we will always have a discrete Welsh population in Mynydd Llwydiarth (Pentreath) and a mixed population in Newborough.
Download (PDF File) BBC News Report on Welsh Red Squirrel Genetics
