Rope bridges for Scottish red squirrels

This video is about red squirrels in Scotland.

Rope bridges help Red squirrels across major roads

August 2008. Research has shown that red squirrels can and do make use of special crossings set up over busy roads.

A researcher from the University of Leeds‘ Faculty of Biological Sciences conducted a survey to look at whether red squirrels living in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park were using rope bridges installed by a local wildlife group.

This kind of bridge is usually installed at sites where there have been fatalities recorded but up until now no-one has collected any data to show whether or not they are actually used by the animals.

Recording usage

Stephen Lockwood, who is completing a masters’ degree in biodiversity and conservation, took specialist training in tree climbing so that he could to set up equipment to record the squirrels’ movements. In addition to using cameras he also used tubes filled with nuts and sticky tape to gather hairs and clay moulds to record the animals’ footprints.

Wildlife corridor

He says: “This isn’t just about cutting down on the number of squirrels killed on the roads. We also know that when a natural habitat becomes fragmented, such as by the introduction of unnatural barriers like roads, there is a lesser chance of the species surviving in the long term because the opportunities for breeding are fewer. The bridges will hopefully encourage the squirrels to explore a wider area and therefore lessen the chance of inbreeding. By finding out whether they actually use these bridges we can assess how useful it is to install them.”

Other wildlife bridges

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Rope bridges have been in use at Diani beach in Kenya for around ten years. They were designed to protect the local colobus monkey population, and the current 23 bridges are thought to be used some 150,000 times per year.
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Utah built a wildlife “Overpass” in 1976 which has been much copied, and improved worldwide, and especially in North America.
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Wildlife “Underpasses” are becoming more and more common. From small pipes to allow toads to migrate, to huge box culverts designed to allow bears and even moose to pass through.