Squirrelpox Survey Officer

Job Title: Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels

Squirrelpox Survey Officer

(Fixed term of 4.5 months)

Based / Home-based. Location flexible within the East Dunbartonshire-North Lanarkshire-Falkirk-Stirling area.
Dept/Region / Conservation
Line Manager / Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels Project Officer Tayside
Duration / Full-time seasonal post to start by mid-June 2015. To terminate end October 2015.

Overall purpose of the job

To carry out control of a sample of grey squirrels and take blood samples for squirrelpox testing to determine how widespread squirrelpox disease is in a defined area of the Scottish Central Belt.

Organisation

The Squirrelpox Survey Officer (SSO) will report to the SWT SSRS Project Officer Tayside.

Main duties

The control programme will be focused initially in ten 10km squares covering Bridge of Allan in the north to Whitburn in the south, and Linlithgow in the east to Kilsyth in the west. Further 10km squares may be added to the area depending on progress with the sampling.
Strategy and organisation
·  Liaise with and report to SWT SSRS Project Officer Tayside
·  May be required to liaise with SSRS Grey Squirrel Controllers and SSRS trained volunteer trappers
Project Duties
·  Use cage-type live traps to catch 10 grey squirrels in each 10km square. Dispatch the squirrels to the SSRS project’s humane protocols and take blood samples to be sent for squirrelpox testing. Full training will be given in taking blood samples and detailed instructions given on labelling, packaging and posting.
·  The SSO will identify sites for conducting the trapping, with the help of the SSRS project and / or RSPB, and be responsible for arranging access permissions with each land manager or householder.
·  The SSO will be responsible for his/her own schedule, arranging access permissions and pre-baiting in the next square while conducting the trapping and sampling of any square.
·  Keep records of trapping effort, location and results to agreed SSRS project standards and submit accurate records and timesheets monthly to the SSRS Project Officer Tayside. Data collection sheets will be provided by the SSRS project and should be submitted in Excel format. (Computer can be loaned if required.)

Key internal & external contacts

·  SSRS Project Officer Tayside
·  Land managers (including SWT and RSPB reserve managers), foresters and woodland managers, gamekeepers, householders
·  SSRS Grey squirrel control officers or contractors
·  SSRS Project Officer Argyll & Trossachs

Personal specification

Qualifications, training, knowledge and experience
Essential qualifications
·  SVQ/NVQ level 2 or equivalent qualification in Game and Wildlife Management or related discipline
·  Good understanding of conservation principles, practices and legislation
Experience
·  Minimum two years previous experience in a relevant field
·  Proven practical wildlife management skills
·  Experience of working with landowners, voluntary groups and members of the public
Special competencies, skills and abilities
Essential
·  Self-motivated, energetic and enthusiastic, with ability to manage own time schedule
·  Ability to communicate confidently and diplomatically with landowners, householders, colleagues, stakeholders and the wider public
·  Control operations must comply with best practice and legislation (SSRS has its own Standard Operating Procedures for grey squirrel control.)
·  Ability to work to a tight protocol to accurately carry out and record blood sampling and avoid cross-contamination
·  Ability to keep full and accurate records.
·  Willing to learn new skills and operating methods
·  Ability to access and work in woodland sites, some of which are remote
·  Full clean UK driving licence/own vehicle
·  Willing to work unsocial hours
·  Familiarity with East Dunbartonshire-North Lanarkshire-Falkirk-Stirling area
·  Working knowledge of Microsoft Office software
Advantageous
·  Commitment to environmental causes
Date / 28 April 2015
Author / Mel Tonkin
Position / Project Manager Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels

Further background information below…..

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Background

Red squirrels are still commonplace across Argyll and much of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park and northern parts of Stirling and Tayside. However, grey squirrels are present in the south of the area, with strong populations in East and West Dunbartonshire and the River Teith corridor from Stirling to Callander. In many places where grey squirrels have become established we initially saw a decline or disappearance of red squirrels, but Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) has succeeded in reversing this trend to a significant extent.

Since 2009, the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) project has been working to control grey squirrel numbers and distributions in a wide band across the Central Lowlands, in order to protect red squirrel populations in the Highlands, Argyll, Grampian and northern Stirling and Tayside from replacement by grey squirrels. This red squirrel protection network consists of dedicated grey squirrel control staff together with landowners and volunteers trapping on their own land in co-operation with the Project. Where the control has been in place for several years, we have seen grey squirrel numbers fall and red squirrels return to some locations from which they had been absent for many years.

Until recently, grey squirrels across the Central Lowlands replaced red squirrels by competition for food and living space. However, over the last year or so a viral disease, squirrelpox, which is carried and spread by grey squirrels but is fatal to red squirrels, has been spreading from the border area to reach the Central Belt. This disease allows grey squirrels to replace reds around 20 times faster.

Work in southern Scotland has shown that continually reducing the density of grey squirrel populations by focussed control can decrease the transmission rate of the disease to red squirrels sufficiently to protect their populations from complete collapse, and allows them to re-establish following a disease outbreak. It is therefore critical that we monitor where the disease has reached so that co-ordinated grey squirrel control can be put in place to reduce the chances of the infection spreading to red squirrels. A scheme of squirrelpox testing of a sample of grey squirrels across the landscape is carried out across the grey squirrel geographic range. Where we can, we arrange for volunteers or landowners under Scottish Rural grant contracts to carry out the blood sampling for squirrelpox testing, but project staff are also required to carry out sampling in areas with no alternative cover.

In this project in the East Dunbartonshire-North Lanarkshire-Falkirk-Stirling area, intensified sampling across a representative section of the landscape close to the Central Belt aims at determining whether squirrelpox disease has spread into the area.

The SSRS Project collates and analyses trapping figures from all Project staff and other participants in the project. Monitoring squirrel distributions is carried out in the spring by means of hair-trap feeder-boxes, plus public sightings and trapping data year-round.

The SSRS Project is a Scottish Wildlife Trust-led project in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage, Scottish Land and Estates, Forestry Commission Scotland and Red Squirrel Survival Trust. SSRS Phase 3 runs over two years, starting in April 2014 to March 2016.

This project is being financed by Scottish Government