0:00
Title: This is a tale about a tail. A tail that belonged to a little red squirrel and his name was Nutkin.
Beatrix Potter
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
1902
0:45
Title: NUTKIN’S LAST STAND
1:01
Paul Parker: You’ve got a squirrel? Fred Chesney is it? Right. What I’ll do, Fred, I’ll get somebody to come and collect it. I’ll phone somebody and get there within an hour. If not, I’ll come myself. Thanks very much. Cheers.
Poster: The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership
1:36
Phillipa Mitchel: So, a charismatic pest, the grey squirrel. Some very clever person went over to the States, saw the grey squirrels bouncing around in gardens there and thought, “Those are rather nice, let’s take some home with us.” It was very much a Victorian thing to go over seas and bring what they saw there back with them. We’re unfortunately suffering the consequences now. This is currently a huge problem. It’s little known about it really.
Slide: Squirrelpox Virus
Phillipa Mitchel: We do know that the grey squirrels carry the antibodies for the virus, which means they’ve had the disease and got better. If the red squirrels get the disease they die within two weeks. This one here is still alive and I do believe this one was actually taken to a vet, treated and did survive.
2:23
Woman: Since you can’t re-release grey squirrels that are caught. What happens to them once you’ve caught them in the humane traps?
Phillipa Mitchel: There’s actually two advised methods of killing them. One is shooting in the traps, which should only be done by an expert and the other is to get them into a bit of sacking and I’m afraid to say it’s a bash over the head. Sounds horrible…
2:45
Woman: Maybe we should round them all up and send them back to America…
2:59
Caller: Hello I’m reporting a grey squirrel NY913684 near Castlerig Farm, High Warden. It was running in a grass field as I cycled into Hexham today. Thank you, bye.
Sticker: Save Our Squirrels
Carri Nicholson: We could do a 1471 and get his number. But…
Phillipa Mitchel: He was the last one. Yeah, you could try.
Carri Nicholson: I’ll give it a try and see if we can get a hold of the contact number for him.
3:28
Carri Nicholson: We run the National Squirrel Sightings hotline. So all sightings of red and grey squirrels come to us.
Title: Carri Nicholson, president, Save Our Squirrels
Carri Nicholson: We then pass on to the Red Squirrel protection Partnership, sightings of grays in the Northeast so that they can send teams out to trap them and kill them. And it sounds bloodthirsty but if we don’t keep a lid on the grey squirrel population in the North of England, then in fifteen years time, it’s very unlikely there’ll be very many if any red’s left.
4:16
Veronica Carnell: We had a bit of a problem getting it to crack it’s own hazelnuts, for quite a while.
Title: Veronica Carnell, Volunteer, Save Our Squirrels
Veronica Carnell: But this, I’ve been told is quite a normal procedure, juvenile red squirrels are not very good at, you know, it’s a learning procedure really and it took time to learn it. The Eurasian red squirrel is its proper name. It’s the only squirrel, which is native to this country, and wherever a grey squirrel turns up the red squirrel population declines and will eventually disappear. We’re looking at the extinction of a whole species, if we don’t do something about it.
Title: Paul Parker, trapper, The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership
5:20
Paul Parker: You have a good Christmas?
Fred Chesney: Well, considering that we’ve got cold and flu.
Paul Parker: That’s got a good coat on it, doesn’t it? That looks, very young. You still seeing many about?
Fred Chesney: Well, we had the trap closed over Christmas but this one was running round the garden for three or four days and so I opened the trap and it was straight in.
5:55
Paul Parker: We’ll take this away and we’ll get it dispatched. It’s a lively thing isn’t it?
Fred Chesney: It is, considering it’s been in there since Friday night.
6:15
Doreen Hallsworth: I went into the Abbey National Building Society, and that was in April of 2006, and I was waiting in the queue and the adverts, advertising whatever it was, but for their latest promotion where cardboard cutouts of grey squirrels, the American grey squirrels.
Title: Doreen Hallsworth, priest, Church of England
Doreen Hallsworth: And there was one about four foot high by the door.
Newspaper: Bank, “sorry” to woman who saw red over grey squirrel advert.
Doreen Hallsworth: It felt almost like an invasion and so I came out of line and stood in front of the CCTV and explained how angry I was and why I was angry and I even said I’m about to knock these things over which I did and then I came out of there and thought, well, that wasn’t very exciting, I’ll go off to our local newspaper office and explain what I just did there…
7:03
Newspaper: Doreen gets bank to change squirrel ads
Doreen Hallsworth: But the outcome was, which is the important thing was that these were initially grey squirrels and then they change them to red.
Poster: Take the Abbey Financial fitness check today.
Title: Harrison Martin, Farmer
7:36
Harrison Martin: When the squirrels were running on the ground, the postman and the tractors used to frighten them and one morning the postman run over one and I said, “No more of that.” And so I told the postman to slow down and the tractors to slow down even me own family used to race down here and the kids and so I just thought I’d heighten them and put long natural wood poles up so their free from the cats and the postman and everybody else. So they come down the poles to the feeders and up again and airborne back into the wood again. And it’s saved them forever. The red squirrels they’re natives of this country and these American grays come in and just kill them like. They give the pox and then they fight and kill them. Down the country way down to Buckingham Palace one day I saw the queen, grey squirrels running about the grounds. I think that’s terrible.
8:45
Lord Redesdale: The grays move as an army.
Title: Lord Rupert Redesdale, Chairman, The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership
Lord Redesdale: They’ll sent scouts into an area, they’ll form a small population, that population grows massively until they have a very large population and suddenly they’ll send out vast numbers of scouts into the next area. A lot of people when we discuss this say, “Oh, it’s awfully military,” and it is quite military the way you actually deal with the tactics. So I am an armchair general in the war against grey squirrels.
Sign: Rupert’s Wood, Environmental Project.
9:22
Paul Parker: So is there still just grays down there or is there still some reds? There’s a population of reds there as well. I think there’s only one or two and people say, “That’s not a population but it is, isn’t it?
Tony Wilde: It is
Paul Parker: We’ve still got to protect them. As long as they’re there and they don’t catch squirrelpox.
Tony Wilde: Everything started off with two, didn’t it?
Paul Parker: Exactly.
Tony Wilde: That’s right, though.
Lord Redesdale: Really?
Tony Wilde: I think so.
Paul Parker: You’re a philosopher, aren’t you?
Tony Wilde: It is. It takes two.
Paul Parker: Back to, what do you call them? Adam and Eve.
Tony Wilde: Adam and Eve.
Paul Parker: You could say this is religious, I think.
Tony Wilde: Well I don’t want to get into religion but I think we should…
Lord Redesdale: One thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to start mapping up as well where the reds have returned to…
10:09
Lord Redesdale: The next couple of years we’re going to be moving a lot further south down the country…
Paul Parker: London.
Lord Redesdale: No. Not London. But in one year we’ve knocked back what the squirrels have taken fifteen years to do and what we want to do is push it back so that reds are a common sight again, because there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be…
Paul Parker: You never forget the sighting of a red like once you’ve seen a one…
Lord Redesdale: No…
Paul Parker: They’re mystical things.
Lord Redesdale: You see Paul’s absolutely in love with them.
Paul Parker: I’m a guardian of red squirrels
10:57
Paul Parker: So we’ll take this away, somewhere quiet. I’ll take it somewhere quit to kill it.
Poster: Wanted red and alive.
11:40
Paul Parker: So we put the bait in here in such a way that when the animal tries to put it’s arms through to pull in the bait it cannot reach. And as you look up you can see these hanging off the roof, which they cannot help themselves. They come through, touch the pack of the treadle…game over. We’ve got people putting them in their gardens and they ring up when they catch them and I go and dispatch them. Targets we’re up to now is 10,571…72, our little friend there…squirrels. This is a young female. That’ll only be about seven month old. And what we’ve done here, we’ve shot it, we’ve shot it through the head, the back of the head straight in there, and that’s it, the animal is dead straight away. They’re just basically a rodent with a different tail. Flying rodents, that’s all they are. Good for nothing…apart from shooting.
13:10
Menu:
Chef’s Daily Specials
Squirrel Pancake with spring onion, cucumber and Damson Chutney £ 4.95
13:18
Marc Sanders: We’re starting the squirrel pancakes so we’re going to need one squirrel for it.
Title: Marc Sanders, Head Chef, The Famous Wild Boar Hotel
Marc Sanders: Just take it out the package. And then over here we’ve got some poaching stock. It’s going to go in the stock and we’re going to poach it for about two and a half hours, two to two and a half hours. Here we are two and a half hours later. Squirrel nice and tender and cooked and the meat will just fall off the bone. There we go so it’s all coming away really nicely there. Sprinkle that on. And then finally the squirrel. What I’m going to do now is just roll that up, quite tight, very careful not to break the pancake. Just put those little wooden skewers in there. And then we should have little bite-sized pieces ready to go. That’s your squirrel pancakes.
14:34
Irene Lehm: It’s nice to have a little relax after Christmas isn’t it?
Larry Lehm: Oh, they look nice.
Waiter: there you go. That’s the squirrel pancake with damson jam.
Larry Lehm: Thank you very much
Irene Lehm: That’s unusual, isn’t it?
Larry Lehm: It is. I’ll take one of those.
Irene Lehm: Not sure quite what to do with it really.
Larry Lehm: Well it looks very nice but lets see how it tastes. Mmm, that is very, very nice.
Title: Ernie Gordon, Children’s Author
15:40
Ernie Gordon: Since I was a small child, I grew to love the red squirrels and so I dearly want to send out a clear message to all the children to retain and keep a precious part of our heritage here in Briton. So it’s up the youngsters. It’s their future not mine. I’m presenting the problem to the child and they must carry it on, otherwise, what you see with Rusty here will disappear forever. Come on, there’s some up here. No, see what I’ve got in my hand. There we are.
17:05
Credits
Directed and Edited by
Nicholas Berger
Camera by
Peter Jordan
Original Score
Dylan Ris
Sound Mix
Dan Olmstead
Color Correction
Brook Hinton
Production Assistance
Anna Booth
Tanya Sleiman
Faculty Advisors
Jan Krawitz
Jaime Meltzer
Kris Samuelson
Technical Assistance
Mark Urbanek
Christian Gainsley
Musicians
Homayoun Khosravi (soloist)
Andrew Chilcote
Laslo Mezo-Arruda
Dylan Ris
Marina Warsaw- Fan
Featuring
Paul Parker
Phillipa Mitchel
Carri Nicholson
Veronica Carnell
Fred Chesney
Doreen Hallsworth
Harrison Martin
Lord Redesdale
Richard Foster
Tony Wilde
Marc Sanders
Larry Lehm
Irene Lehm
Ernie Gordon
Thanks
May Lin Au Yong
Margaretta Berger
Henry Breitrose
Evan Briggs
Geoff Cater
Emmanuel Dayan
Kelcey Edwards
Amy Eschelman
Jeffrey Friedman
Peter Jordan
John Kane
Andy Lehm
Pavle Levi
Melanie Levy
Charlene Music
Tim O’Hara
Will Rogers
Sebastian Walsh-Mangham
Brian Wickelow
Gillian Wickelow
Thanks also to
Save Our Squirrels
The Red Squirrel Protection Partnership
The Beatrix Potter Experience
The Famous Wild Boar Hotel
The University of the Third Age
Produced in the Documentary Film and Video MFA Program
Department of Art & Art History
Stanford University
A Pinecone Pictures Production
Ó Nicholas Berger
2008