Grey squirrel management for conservation purposes raises genuine welfare questions about methods, scale and the ethics of lethal control of an introduced species.
Grey squirrel management creates a genuine welfare dilemma: lethal control of grey squirrels causes suffering and death to individual animals, but inaction causes the welfare harm of red squirrel displacement and squirrelpox mortality. Individual grey squirrels caught in traps experience fear and physiological stress. Poorly managed traps cause prolonged suffering. The development of immunocontraception as an alternative to lethal control would resolve this dilemma by managing grey squirrel populations without killing. Until then, welfare-conscious lethal control with regular trap checking and rapid killing is preferable to poorly managed or unregulated trapping.