My TL;DR:

Red squirrels are one of Scotland’s most beloved and most threatened woodland animals.

Red squirrels and their tree nests are protected under law. But in 2017 Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) was granted a licence by the Scottish Government’s wildlife agency allowing dreys to be damaged during forestry operations.

FLS estimated that the “theoretical maximum” of red squirrel babies killed when their nests were destroyed during tree felling between 2017 and 2022 was 1,976.

FLS’s estimates, however, were dismissed as “bullshit” by Dave Anderson, an award-winning wildlife expert who worked for FLS and its predecessor bodies for 43 years.

What was going on within FLS was a “disgrace”, with staff being put under increasing pressure to ignore wildlife so that more money could be made from selling timber, Anderson alleged.

FLS treated the deaths of red squirrels, birds and other wildlife as “collateral damage”, he told The Ferret.