Exmoor Squirrel Project wants grey squirrels culled and on menus

A wildlife project wants to reintroduce native red squirrels and humanely cull the non-native grey squirrel.

The Exmoor Squirrel Project is asking landowners to set live traps and restaurants to serve grey squirrel.

Acting manager Kerry Hosegood said the grey squirrel was "wreaking havoc" on UK woodlands, costing about £40m a year in tree damage.

"If we don't put good action plans in place, we won't recognise our landscapes at all any more," she said.

"Our woodlands, landscape and the biodiversity isn't set up to deal with the behaviours of the grey."

According to the project, grey squirrels attack trees for food and strip the trees "eventually leading to tree death".

"Over 150 years, it's [been] wiping out so much of our nature and our woodlands aren't able to repair themselves quick enough," said Ms Hosegood.

"The grey squirrel is wreaking so much havoc on our woodlands across the UK.

"This isn't something that we like to go out and do and just target greys and say 'Let's remove all of them.' It's a very serious project and there are a lot of managed plans in place as to how they are actually dealt with.

"The red is our native squirrel and in Great Britain it's down to an estimated 120,000 for reds in comparison to now an estimated three million invasive greys."

Ms Hosegood said the organisation would also like to encourage the use of grey squirrels on menus to limit waste.

"We're going to introduce them to restaurants in the Exmoor area because they actually make for good eating," she said.

"There's no waste there. They'll be put to some good use instead of being put in a hole in the ground."

Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]