Rare red squirrels feared lost from last urban habitat in England

England's only population of urban red squirrels is feared lost after conservationists said none had been sighted for several months.

The rare animal, native to the UK, has seen its population decline rapidly amid threats from habitat loss and invasive species.

Conservationists at Havannah Nature Reserve in Hazlerigg, north of Newcastle, said they had not seen the squirrels in several months.

Local campaigners blamed poor management and new housing developments nearby for disrupting the squirrels' habitat.

Rachel Locke, of Save Newcastle Wildlife, said the squirrels had last been sighted in the spring, when one had been caught on camera chasing a grey squirrel away.

She said it had been "an ongoing battle to get something done" to help support the population, which was regarded as "stressed" and had been afflicted by disease.

"It's safe to say they've gone", she said. " I used to go into the reserve, and all you had to do was stop and listen and you'd hear little bits of pine cones falling through the trees. I've got videos of seven or eight of them chasing each other around the same tree."

Newcastle City Council said the loss should be "set against a backdrop of their gradual decline across the country".

Urban Green Newcastle, a charity which manages the city's parks, said a decrease had also been seen in nearby Gosforth Nature Reserve.

Sarah Capes, ranger team leader at Urban Green Newcastle, said: "We are aware there has been a struggling red squirrel population at Havannah and Three Hills Nature Reserve.

"We have already met with Red Squirrels Northern England and Northeast Red Squirrels to discuss improving red squirrel conservation across our estate, so we are enormously saddened to hear that Save Newcastle Wildlife has reported a lack of recent evidence at Havannah."

Grey squirrels, introduced to the UK from North American by the Victorians, have replaced their native cousins as the dominant species over the past century.

There are now 2.5m grey squirrels in the UK compared to just 140,000 red squirrels, now largely limited to areas of Scotland and northern England, as well as the Isle of Wight.

They are more robust and larger and can survive on a wider range of food than red squirrels. Grey squirrels also carry the squirrelpox virus, which is not harmful to them but is fatal to red squirrels.