Revealed: the hunt for a gang of fugitive invaders
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor
A HUNT for Siberian chipmunks has been under way on the Hampshire-Berkshire border for six months since an unknown number escaped from an estate owned by the Duke of Wellington.
Conservationists are anxious to trap or shoot any that are still roaming free to stop them setting up home in the English countryside and threatening native wildlife. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is appealing to walkers to report any sightings of the small, stripe-backed ground squirrels that are common in the forests of Northern Asia and are sometimes kept as pets in Britain.
They will bite if provoked or approached but are otherwise considered harmless to humans, although they may carry diseases. But they pose a particular threat to bank voles, wood mice and breeding birds, whose eggs and young chicks they eat.
If they became established and spread they would also compete with birds and small mammals for berries, nuts and insect grubs. Their threat to native species could be as great as that posed by grey squirrels to the native reds.
One problem is that the chipmunks escaped in May and some could have given birth to a litter of as many as six in September.
Yet the existence of chipmunks in the English countryside emerged only when a camper, Graham Langley, spotted three distinctive feather-duster tails roaming in woodland at Riseley, near Reading, early this summer. The sightings are reported in the latest BBC Wildlife magazine. According to local park keepers the number on the loose could be as few as five or as many as 70. They breed in May and September.
The chipmunks escaped from the Animal Farm area of the Wellington Country Park, a 350-acre estate near the Duke of Wellingtons family home, Stratfield Saye House. Defra said that the number of escapees was suspected to be 30, of which 18 were found dead within a few weeks, and that since then a further eight had been trapped or shot by park wardens.
No chipmunks have been seen since August. Defra experts think any still missing are likely to have died or been killed by predators but trapping will continue until next spring.
There is anxiety because 17 chipmunks released into an amusement park near Brussels in 1980 thrived and, by 2000, numbered 18,000 in four colonies. Their numbers are still growing and they are causing problems for farmers.
IN THE WILD
- Siberian chipmunks live in forests in Scandinavia, western Russia and Asia
- They are excellent tree climbers but live on the ground in holes known as lodges
- Their main food is vegetables, seeds, nuts, buds of trees, mushrooms, berries, wheat and oats. They also attack insects, young, birds and lizards
- They have a distinctive chuck-chuck call that is repeated if the animal is frightened or agitated
