Baby Red Squirrels Survive British Hurricane Katia

Sharon · #1 ● 09-21-2011, 10:51 AM

These cute baby squirrels were blown out of their tree-top nest when the tail end of Hurricane Katia hit Britain last week.

Luckily the four babies, who are just five weeks old, were found by a passer-by and taken to a nearby vets surgery in Alnwick, Northumberland. From there they were sent to the Sanctuary Wildlife Care Centre at Ulgham near Morpeth, and they are now recovering well from their ordeal.

Sanctuary owner Kim Olsen said that if the squirrels hadn't been found they would have died within hours, probably as a result of being attacked by magpies or cats. She said that they had gone into shock and were very sleepy and still.

The woman who found them couldn't locate their mother and sanctuary workers are worried that she could still be looking for her babies.

However the squirrels aren't ready to be released back into the wild just yet. At the moment they are being looked after by volunteer Eileen Welsh in her home. She uses at tiny bottle to feed them goat's milk every three hours and she will continue to care for them over the winter.

Kim said: "At this time of year the squirrels would be collecting food for winter but even if we released them in November they wouldn't have enough time.

"We're planning to release them gradually back into the wild next spring at our special unit, which is at a secret location in Northumberland.

"They're doing absolutely brilliantly now, they're extremely lively and mischievous."