A grey squirrel which has been terrorizing residents of the small Welsh village, has been captured and put down, It started attacking residents last week, injuring at least 18 people before it was caught.
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Frequent And Friendly Visitor
The attack started last week in Buckly, Flintshire and lasted for two days. The gnawing culprit was a frequent visitor to the garden of one of the locals, Corinne Reynolds.
She nicknamed him Stripe after the ferocious character in the film Gremlins, and he initially came around to steal bird food. Mrs Reynolds said:
All those months he's been fine, he would even come and take a nut out of my hand.
But last week, Stripe was not his usual friendly self; he literally bit the hand that was feeding him. Mrs Reynolds, disturbed to find on Facebook that he had attacked others as well, with some posting gory images of bloody bite marks and deep scratches requiring tetanus jabs. She added:
After I saw all those pictures of people's injuries, I thought 'oh my goodness, what's happened to him'?
The Betrayal
The attacks were ended when Ms Reynolds set a trap for him in her garden by leaving his favourite snack as bait. The RSPCA then came around to transfer the squirrel from Mrs Reynolds’ bedroom, where the cage in which he trapped was kept to prevent him from escaping.
I only left the trap near the area I normally feed him for 20 minutes, and he was in. I felt he did trust me, and I betrayed him.
The RSPCA after examining him, got a vet to euthanized him. A spokesman for the animal charity told of how the decision was a sad and difficult one.
We were incredibly sad to have to put this squirrel to sleep but were left with no choice due to changes in legislation in 2019 making it illegal to release grey squirrels back into the wild.
