Red squirrels face imminent extinction in England unless the government funds the development of a vaccine against squirrelpox, warns a leading conservation group.

Warmer winters have allowed non-native grey squirrel populations to surge, with breeding and feeding continuing year-round. Conservationists estimate that 70% of grey squirrels now carry squirrelpox, a virus harmless to them but lethal to red squirrels, further threatening the already vulnerable red squirrel population.

“We’re facing a huge surge of grey squirrels,” said Robert Benson, founder of Penrith and District Red Squirrel Group, which covers 600 square miles of Cumbria.

“We think they are breeding three or four times a year, and having four or five kits each time, leading to a massive expansion in grey squirrel numbers: 15 or 20 young grey squirrels are moving through the countryside [each year], from each breeding pair.”

Benson, who founded his conservation group 40 years ago after spotting the first grey squirrel in the region, recently hired an eighth full-time ranger and relies on part-time volunteers to combat the local grey squirrel population.

“Red squirrels are already under extreme pressure, because the grey squirrels will out-compete them for feed and for territory,” he said. “We’ve already lost them from every county in mainland England, apart from Cumbria and Northumberland.”

“We are at the coal face. England is under extreme threat, and in due course, Scotland will be threatened in the same way.”

He emphasised that his group is one of many in Cumbria and Northumberland dedicated to ensuring red squirrels’ survival.

“Unless we can manage to control that grey surge, the chances are, in two or three years, the red population will begin to disappear.”

He is calling on the government to urgently invest in a squirrelpox vaccine while a viable population of red squirrels remains. Without this intervention, the disappearance of red squirrels could accelerate drastically.

“Every time a red gets squirrelpox, it dies, and it’s a slow painful death,” said Benson.

If that doesn’t happen soon, he said, “we won’t have red squirrels in England, and probably in the United Kingdom, because Scotland too will go, in time … Defra [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] and Natural England have to take seriously the threat to our red squirrels”.

He added: “If it wasn’t for the work we do, the red would already have disappeared from this part of the world.”

The grey squirrel’s natural advantage in digesting tannins in acorns, a common food source red squirrels struggle to consume, compounds the problem. Where squirrelpox is present, red squirrels are replaced by greys up to 25 times faster.

Benson notes that in recent years, pregnant and lactating female grey squirrels have been observed even in winter months, highlighting the unprecedented growth of their population.

“We’re seeing it now, in November. They shouldn’t be breeding at this time of year, but they are.”

Grey squirrels not only threaten red squirrels but also cause significant environmental damage, including harm to growing timber and predation on songbirds and their eggs.

“They cause damage to property too, by getting into lofts and outhouses, chewing through plumbing and electrics. Yet I’m afraid that the conservation of red squirrels seems to be a low priority for the government.”

Benson’s urgent plea underscores the critical need for government action to preserve one of England’s most iconic native species before it is too late.