Quercus, which is part of Queens University Belfast, is responsible for conducting high quality ecological research within the school of Biological Sciences. Quercus is working in partnership with the National Trust and the Fermanagh Red Squirrel Group to find out more about the distribution status of the native and endangered red squirrel across the county. This piece of work is being made possible via a grant from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s Challenge Fund.
On Saturday the 25th January, Quercus held a training workshop for the citizen scientists of Fermanagh at the National Trust’s Castlecoole site. The project, funded by the Challenge Fund, will use camera traps to monitor the distribution of red and grey squirrels in the county. Eleven citizen scientists from the Fermanagh Red Squirrel Group and the National Trust showed their support for the project that will run over the next 6 weeks. It is hoped that if the project is successful it can be used as a model by other squirrel groups in Northern Ireland to monitor the distribution of the native red and invasive grey squirrel.
You can find out more about the project by visiting Quercus’s webpage at http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/Quercus/News/
