posted by Cptn
It’s a bad week for squirrels – Otterton Mill is putting the frolicking grey tree crawler on its menu in the form of a squirrel kebab.
Otterton Mill’s head chef (or maybe you’d prefer chief chef) Ed Chester is committed to education, and he says squirrel meat is genuinely good, and you guessed it – tastes of chicken, a gamey chicken, but chicken none-the-less.
The squirrel is free-range and locally sourced – how can you argue with that? Although his planed dishes with rook and badger ham may seem a step too far.
And as to eating squirrel, we turn to Louise Vennells on What’s On South West, who said: “To me, it had a taste more similar to red meat with the texture of white, and was delicious.”
So there you have it – squirrel, best served with nuts.
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But possibly good news for the survival of the red squirrel, which was thought to be facing extinction England and Wales within 25 years. It may have developed an immunity to a virus being spread by its grey American cousin.
There are only about 140,000 red squirrels left in Britain, with 75% of them in Scotland. This compares with about 2.5 million grey squirrels, which were introduced from America in 1876. Many red squirrel populations in England and Wales are declining rapidly as their grey rivals encroach on their territory and spread the squirrel pox virus, which doesn’t appear to affect greys.
However, it was previously thought that the virus was 100 per cent lethal to red squirrels and there was little or no chance of them developing immunity, but some are now surviving. This may represent a sign of co-evolution between host and virus – similar to the way the myxomatosis virus in rabbits co-evolved to become a less lethal form of the disease.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the red squirrel back in Devon’s countryside and parks?
More information on this and other evolutionary topics is to be found on the Devon Humanist website.
Where’d you find the squirrel pic? Is it available to purchase?
Instead of a chefs hat – he wears a coon pelt like Davey Crocket.