The red menace

Down south, there's no dithering:

IN ENGLAND an edict has gone out to shoot them by the hundred thousand.

Yeah! That'll show 'em.

And the result:

Reds have gone from England except in a handful of redoubts

It must be the Cameron effect.

But no such luck for us:

...in Scotland, where about 75 per cent of Britain's surviving 160,000 reds are thought to live

Aye, Princes Street is fair hoaching with Guardian readers.

Apparently we saw:

the first appearance of reds in Britain about 10,000 years ago

Where was Adam Smith when we needed him?

But now it gets confusing:

The red hordes of the late 1800s were proof that nothing is certain in nature, because the species had been in serious danger of disappearing at the end of the 18th century

Haven't they got their centuries a bit mixed up? I suppose the Scotsman writers are still hung over.

But this is surely correct:

Reds recovered and spread ... becoming a pest by the start of 20th century

Here's some surprising news:

Although reds ... are found across Europe and Asia, they are threatened only in Britain and to a small extent, so far, in Italy

I knew that Berlusconi was a sound chap.

But we're still going to see plenty of them in their natural Scottish habitat:

There is a good chance of maintaining reds in Scotland by co-operation

And:

What we hope to do is get through the next few difficult years - there's no risk of reds becoming extinct, but they are under serious pressure

Needless to say, the politicians are on to this:

A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said: The key objective is to maintain areas where reds thrive and extend them if possible. Long-term habitat provision is the most successful route we can take

So no threat to Drumchapel or Pilton then.

This is probably all for the good:

the Executive should be doing more sooner to preserve reds. But she says a gradual approach will work.

Gradualism: it's the British way.

The full story is reported here.