When the Anglesey project began in 1998, wild red squirrels were only to be found within the commercial conifer plantation of Mynydd Llwydiarth. The small population quickly began to build up following the removal of grey squirrels from the plantation, and although animals did colonise some adjacent broadleaved woodlands, it appeared that they would have considerable difficulty in spreading elsewhere because of the extreme woodland fragmentation. As a result, in 2002 steps were taken to reintroduce red squirrels back into Newborough forest. Red squirrels had died out within this coastal pine plantation during the mid 1990s.

Initially work focussed upon clearing Newborough forest of grey squirrels. The figure below shows the results of trapping during three 20 day sessions in 2002. Large numbers of animals were killed in the first session (black squares), but by the third session (grey circles) relatively few animals were being caught. Once numbers had been reduced significantly, adult red squirrels were sourced from captive zoological collections by the Welsh Mountain Zoo, Colwyn Bay. The Zoo had previously carried out two reintroduction projects which, although ultimately unsuccessful, had yielded valuable data on release protocols. The red squirrels were housed in large enclosures.

Two yearling female and four males red squirrels were obtained early in 2003, and these were joined by a further small group of adults. By the spring of 2004, a breeding collection of 11 adults had been established. In May, a female and two males were released, they bred and the female produced two litters containing three and four juveniles respectively. Of the four remaining captive adult female squirrels, one failed to breed, but the remaining three produced five litters containing a total of 16 young. In September of 2004, several of these young animals were released into the woodland.

A small number of breeding animals died during the winter of 2004/5 and these were replaced with additional stock, so that in March of 2005 the collection encompassed three mixed sex pairs and one trio (two males and a female). By May 05 three captive litters had been produced, but then an unidentified virus caused very heavy mortality and the loss of all but one of the captive adults. Several of the young animals also died. One litter was hand reared, whilst two weaned young from a second litter were treated with antibiotics and also survived. Three of these young animals were subsequently released in September 05.

Elsewhere in the forest we continued to catch red squirrels, and during the disease outbreak a wild born litter weaned successfully from a nest box situated within 100m of the enclosures housing the captive stock. Later a wild female was found to be in oestrus in November which is unusually late. A litter of four well developed young squirrels were subsequently discovered within a nest box during February 2006.

However, on a more somber note, the decomposed bodies of two males were discovered in two other boxes. One of these was a wild born red squirrel previously trapped in mid November whilst the second was an unmarked individual and therefore also wild born.

Despite these losses, live trapping in May of 2007 revealed that at least 40 red squirrels were established in the wild within Newborough forest. Many of these animals were breeding and it is anticipated that the population may reach 80-100 by the autumn of 2007. This good news was further boosted by the prospect of the project being able to release significant numbers of young born in the release enclosures. To date we have four litters consisting of 14 individuals. Three of our captive females have bred, and one animal has produced two litters, and a total of seven young.