About Urban Squirrels
Urban Squirrels is a London-based wildlife rescue unit specializing in grey squirrels: rescue, advice and advocacy.
The legal bit
Urban Squirrels is a charitable company registered with the HMRC under the number of EW62275.
For grey squirrel rescue, we are licensed by Natural England under the reference of
2020-100025-SPM-IAS-1
The authorised people for Urban Squirrels are Natalia Doran and Nadia Raud.
We operate from two sites. These are private homes, so visits are, unfortunately, rarely possible. But there are so many pictures and updates on our social media accounts, that you will feel like you are here with us every day already! :)
The philosophical bit
The strapline "Every life is precious!" is there for a reason: at Urban Squirrels we believe that every animal deserves a chance to live, regardless of its species. We are often asked, "Why save grey squirrels, they are not endangered?" The thing is, we do not save species, we save individuals. It makes sense to do so; after all, the reason animals are accorded moral status at all is their sentience, the fact that they feel pleasure, pain, fear, hope. But sentience is something that is attributed to individual animals only. It is not the species that feels fear or pleasure, but the individual animal. Which is why we save individuals!
The practical bit
Grey squirrel rescue in the UK is operating under extremely difficult conditions. Invasive Alien Species Order 2019 made it illegal for rescue centres to release back into the wild the animals whom they have helped. We can have a license to keep and move grey squirrels, but not to release them. Because of this, many big rescue centres have decided not to bother with the keep license either, and are either turning away or euthanizing grey squirrels.
For the few of us who still take in grey squirrels, the pressure is immense. Most of us (Urban Squirrels is no exception) are now full and are trying to eke out a few more placements here and there by either licensing new sites or helping other people to get licenses. For information on which centres still take in grey squirrel, click below for the Help Wildlife UK directory.
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