NRegan

Last updated 00:00, Friday, 21 December 2007

From motorbike racer to squirrel’s champion, TONY GREENBANK meets Keswick man ALAN BECK, who has a mission to save Cumbria’s reds . . .

ALAN BECK knows what it feels like to be a member of an endangered species.

He only has to glance at the picture of a red squirrel on a Christmas card to be reminded of how he himself nearly met an untimely end.

He was an expert motorcycle racer who won on many occasions during thrill-packed weekends at venues as varied as Oulton Park, Brands Hatch, Scarborough and Croft.

And he had relatively few scary “incidents".

One of these, though, happened while racing at Oulton Park. He took a bend on the inside after passing another rider only to crash - and have that same rider run over his leg, breaking it in three places).

On two occasions in the same week while practising for the Manx Grand Prix he almost ran out of road.

“If I had gone off the road," he says in his no-nonsense Keswickian way, “it would have literally been 'End of Story'."

Those two scrapes were enough to make him retire from a successful racing career.

Even then in that particular Manx Grand Prix he still came third out of a formidable field of racing stars.

Since that last race - and after years of taking in the petrol fumes and incessant roar of motor sport - he now finds the peace and tranquillity in his local forests and woods protecting that other endangered species.

He has become an activist in conserving the red squirrel.

This is the native squirrel in the British Isles which is at risk from its great adversary, the grey squirrel.

“The grey squirrel," he says, “was introduced to England in the late 1870s from America and is the primary cause of the marked decline of the red squirrel.

“It does so by out-competing red squirrels for food in our woodlands and transmitting a deadly virus, the squirrelpox virus.

“This is lethal to red squirrels. If they contract the disease they die within a week."

As with his racing days on his 250cc Suzuki he has to use mind games, cunning and even exhibit courage in the handling of the grey squirrel advance which is ever-present.

A squirrelpox virus alert has just gone out in Penrith showing the threat is ever-present. It is only by controlling the greys that the reds - those loveable little scamps on Christmas cards this festive season - can prosper.

But then Alan has a vision: it is of healthy red squirrels inhabiting the woodlands round Borrowdale and Bassenthwaite and from there spreading through the nation with Keswick itself the nucleus of it all.

And like in his fast-bike days when he notched top places on so many circuits, he thinks that he and his fellow protectors of the red squirrel are at last showing signs of winning.

“A lot of people think we don't stand a chance," he says. “They just think there are so many greys about. But there are signs that red squirrels are returning to a number of areas where they had become scarce if not non-existent.

“One such area is Ullock Moss, near Keswick. Conservation volunteers are seeing red squirrels there after an absence of two years, and we have caught a lot of greys in traps in that area."

His work is helped by being a member of the Allerdale Red Squirrel Group and working with him are groups of volunteers, who give invaluable help with trapping and dispatching the greys.

Alan who works as a fitter at Sellafield, and who was brought up in Thirlspot by his parents Frank and Grace Beck (they ran the local post office for many years), has a theory about traps.

He says they should be humane, and let any red squirrel that is accidentally captured escape.

“It's what we do to save the red squirrel," he explains. “I used to shoot squirrels with an air rifle but one day I realised we had to do more and needed to trap grey squirrels as well.

“It is the trapping aspect that we now focus on.

“Shooting is still important and we have crack shots like Matthew Stuart from Threlkeld and Lee Smith from Thirlmere who give invaluable assistance, but it is only part of the story.

“We find concentrating on the humane aspects of grey squirrel control more successful, especially as we deliver traps to people who might phone and say 'I have a grey squirrel visiting the bird feeder in my garden'.

“Can you lend me a trap so we can catch it?'

Such is Alan's awareness of the humane aspect he has designed a grey squirrel trap which does, in fact, let red squirrels feed and pass through.

A trained marksman, his battle against the greys began in 2001 when he answered an advert from the Lake District National Park Authority for marksmen to control grey squirrels in the area.

His application was accepted and for four years he could be found early in the morning in woodland around the town, and even in large private gardens, searching for greys.

Over four years he shot almost 400 greys. But it was in 2005 when it became apparent trapping would be more effective.

Commercial traps were available, but the problem was they trapped both red and grey squirrels.

“The problem is," says Alan, “those reds become stressed when trapped which stops them breeding. Hence my idea of a trap which allows the red to escape and which I have put into production."

His traps are now used by the National Trust, Keswick Town Council, Borrowdale Parish Council and many householders who have large gardens.

On a final warning note, he says: “Red squirrels have lived happily in the woodlands in Cumbria since the last Ice Age - until the greys turned up.

“Their very presence could mark the end of a whole species. But only if we allow it.

“The first report of greys in the Keswick area was in 1997 and now, 10 years on, we still have a healthy red population. We must be doing something right."