I've been a criminal!!

We would have protested your ignorance Fran, I'm sure! Maybe the courts would have shown you some leniency due to the fact you've come from the big smoke :)

lol I could show 'em my white stick and tell 'em that I didn't know they were grey! but shee, most of mainland southern England is overrrun with greys, so I do'nt think the police would have been ver happy if we'd all reported every time we saw one

Laws are laws and must be obeyed.
The sooner people in this country realise that the better.
I like these.

All English males over the age of 14 will carry out 2 hours of longbow practice each weekend; this will be supervised by the local church official. This law dates as far back as the middle ages when there was no regular British army and the local gentry were ordered to train a quota of knights, archers, infantry, etc.

The archery range in each area was set up in a safe area, usually at the bottom of a field, generally called a 'bottom' and many of these sites still exist, such as 'Trotters Bottom' in Hertfordshire.

In the city of York, it is quite legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York if he is carrying a bow and arrow. Excluding Sunday.

In Hereford you may shoot a Welsh person all day, but only on Sunday, and only with a Longbow, as long as he is in the Cathedral Close.

In Chester Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls and only after midnight.

and in london it's still the law that all taxi drivers must carry a bale of hay for the horse.

"Laws are laws and must be obeyed. The sooner people in this country realise that the better." - are you advocating localised ethinic cleansing??? :-D)

the squirrel-reporting was a *recent* stupid law, brought in in 1937, the story said. There must have been something drastic that happened around then to make them bring in the law - the fact that few of us ever heard of it shows how effective it was!

Never mind Fran....I have been known to occasionally break the speed limit (unintentionally of course!)

Fran, the law was most likely brought in when the Greys came over from the USA, and our red started suffering.

I am afraid I was breaking that law also.

I found that out today, when I read about the law.

Some laws are outdated, but not repealed, even though they are not enforced.

There are signs in all the parks up here...don't know if it's the same in England, as you don't have many reds, especially in the South....but here we are asked to report them in parks etc. I don't know about gardens though. I've never had one in my garden, so it's not a problem....so far! I did think about planting a Hazel tree to try to encourage the red ones in, but there isn't really a suitable 'corridor' for them anywhere near my garden, so probably no point trying. Still, I do like a Hazel nut!

I would have thought that Greys came over long ago, long enough to have spread enough to become dominant, so dunno why the law was only passed in 1937

I did read that they were trying to reintroduce red squirrels in some parts of the country - prob is, reds were pushed out by greys in the first place, so what's to stop them doing it a second time? never seen a red squirrel other than in picutres or tv documentaies :-{

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7812105/Red-squirrels-to-be-reintroduced-to-England.html

could adopt one, though: http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/adoptaredsquirrel.html?gclid=COrbiNLfpr0CFY_HtAodJhwAKw

Ah Fran that's so sad. They are one of my favourite animals ever! In the local country parks they are really tame...you can watch them raiding the waste bins etc. they are so easy to see here, nobody takes much notice, which is a real pity, we don't appreciate them until they are gone. :(

There were still lots of reds in the 1940s Fran and greys were hardly ever seen where we lived. The law was an unsuccessful attempt to save our pretty reds, so not stupid. I think we've all been breaking that law lately. I knew they should be exterminated but not that we were obliged to do it!

I don't think anybody would get away with shooting a Welshman these days though, even with a longbow!
And sadly there isn't anyone in our church competent to supervise longbow practice...

Fran your not the only one breaking the law. There are quite a few grey squirrels round by my moms and a particularly nasty one in a park near where I used to work (used to throw things at the people walking past!).

Karen I'm quite envious, I've never seen a red either.

It would be great if they manage to re-introduce the reds. Not sure how they'd do it though.

I see one nearly every time I go to the cAstle as well. I get a real thrill every time I see one! Sadly there are greys at the Castle too, so it is probably only a matter of time, unless the keepers catch or destroy the greys.

I didn't know the greys started being a menace that late, i thought they were intruducde much earlier, to have spread as much as htey have. So not a stupid law indeed - relevant to the time. But i never saw any notice int he local parks about reporting them, so it wasn't widely known or advertised. Mind you, a few years after the lwa was passed, they had other, more serious, problems to worry about ...

lol if one took a longbow to church these days, that's something that would get reported pretty smartly to the police!

Hi, Fran, is the U.K. in EU? Lol. I hope, my message will be not deleted now.

it is, Kat, thgogh some are thinking about changing that ...

For us it is much more better to be in the E.U. then in the U.S.S.R., but sometimes laws they create in Brussels looks like they do not know what to do. Like these squirrels...And did you already report it at the police station? Lol.

lol for the UK I think it's a question of being in the EU or the USA - but we seem to manage both!!

Walking around with a longbow anywhere would soon get you arrested or even a toy plastic gun! Squirrels will visit to feed on Hazelnuts and bury spares everywhere in your garden. I have pulled about 20 up recently including one that was 2 foot tall. They nibble bird feeders, otherwise they are wonderful. We also have a rat. He fell off the wall and scuttled off yesterday so I think the rat pellets are working! A lot of them have been eaten.

ugh, rats! and i thought mice were bad enough! i was at someone's house once, and i could hear scuttling under the wooden floor - he said it was ok, cos as long as you've got mice you know you don't have rats. I'd think that small consolation!

there was a news story a while ago, Dorjac, of a blind man being tasered by police because they thought his white stick was a samuria sword! makes me wonder how that officer manages without white stick himself ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-23914417

the squirrels here have been at the "squirrel proof" feeder that now has nuts in it, but it's been polite and not gnawed through any of the other feeders. So far ...