Red Squirrels May be Developing Antibodies Against Squirrelpox (Video)

Squirrelpox has helped devastate red squirrel populations in the United Kingdom. Now, there may be a bit of good news when it comes to this disease. It turns out that the populations of red squirrels are not only recovering, but they're also developing antibodies to this particular disease. This could be good news for a species that's still battling for survival against the invasive grey squirrel.

In 2008, a serious outbreak of squirrelpox devastated the red squirrel population along the Sefton coastline. In fact, red squirrel populations at the Seaforth Coastal reserve fell by 85 percent due to the outbreak. This potentially fatal disease can be partly blamed on grey squirrels, which have invaded the area from North America.

Grey squirrels were first introduced in 1876. That's when Thomas Brocklehurst, a Victorian banker who lived at Henbury Park in Cheshire, decided to release a wild pair of grey squirrels that he had brought back with him from a business trip to America, according to The Guardian. Viewing the squirrels as a novelty, other landowners followed suit. More than a century later, there are now about five million grey squirrels inhabiting much of the woodland across the UK, pushing out native red squirrels.

The outbreak in 2008, though, gave researchers the opportunity to better study squirrelpox and its effects on the red squirrel population.

"We have had a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of the squirrelpox disease. So far, our findings indicate that they are recovering from the disease which affected them so severely in 2008," said Julian Chantrey, one of the researchers, in a news release. "There are even indications that a few of the surviving squirrels appear to have antibody to the virus, which would suggest that they have recovered from infection in the past."

The findings are hopeful for the future of red squirrels--and environmentalists need the good news. Red squirrels have been in decline due to the grey squirrel population. The fact that red squirrels may be developing some resistance to the disease could mean that they have a better chance at reclaiming some of their habitat.

Want to learn more about the red squirrels beating squirrelpox? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube.