Squirrels — an overview of common clinical presentations and important diseases

Abstract

The British red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) population is under threat for a variety of reasons, with disease due to squirrelpox virus playing a significant role in population declines. There is, however, relatively limited information on the large variety of other infectious and non-infectious diseases that may affect UK red squirrels, although several investigations have reported on the broad causes of British red squirrel mortality (e.g. Keymer, 1983 ; LaRose et al, 2010 ; Simpson et al, 2013a ; Dale et al, 2014 ) contributing to and enhancing this knowledge. This article provides information on the most common clinical presentations of casualty squirrels in the UK and discusses some of the other important diseases recorded in UK squirrels.