Okay, firstly chill out. Not everyone, least of all me knows everything about every disease every wild animal may carry or is vulnerable to. I love animals and would never intentionally do anything to jeopardise their health.There WERE red squirrels around Bradford, until the greys moved in.
To give you an idea how virulent the squirrel pox is, a friend ran photographic trips to a country hotel, not far from you, in Yorkshire. They had a resident population of red squirrels and each could be identified by ear tuft shape and colourations and other distinguishing marks or features. The hotel put up a feeding station for the guests and the reds came every day, for years they had been coming, each generation learning from their parents. Then one solitary grey was spotted on the feeder - within 3 weeks every red squirrel was dead from the squirrel pox. It is a devastating disease. Well done you for helping it to proliferate. I hope you are very proud of yourself. Ignorance is such bliss.
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I doubt you will read it, but here is some information from the Red Squirrel Trust that might be enlightening:
Threats to Red Squirrels - Red Squirrel Survival Trust
www.rsst.org.uk
Disease - British Red Squirrel
Red squirrels can carry a variety of internal and external parasites, including lice, ticks and mites. It is essential to thoroughly clean squirrel feeders to avoid transmitting parasites and disease. Red squirrels are also susceptible to various diseases, some of them being: Squirrel Pox The...www.britishredsquirrel.org
Now that I do know however I will leave the grey squirrels to fend for themselves. Perhaps your manner of education needs a little more restraint.
As for the country hotel you claim is near me, Bradford is not in the country so I doubt we have a country hotel. I have however seen red squirrels in the Lake District and Scotland many times but in the last 60 years of living on this planet I have never seen a red squirrel in Bradford.
Thank you for the information.
