Mooney Goes Wild contributor Terry Flanagan shares his latest round up of nature news.

Most people will by now realise that the grey squirrels we see in Ireland all originated from an initial introduction of just a dozen animals which were released in Co Longford as part of a wedding present back in 1911.

From that tiny introduction, greys have traversed the country, to the detriment of our native red squirrels.

They don't compete directly with our native reds, but have managed to reduce their numbers in a number of ways. There is a squirrel infection, a viral infection, known as squirrel pox which if contracted by greys, is not a serious problem, but if picked up by our native reds, its spells disaster.

However, the tide may be turning in favour of our red squirrels. Lately, there has been an increase in Pine Martens. Although rare in Ireland, this native species is on the increase and as it preys on grey squirrels (rather than reds), grey squirrel numbers are decreasing and reds are increasing.

And there has been more good news from a different front, this time with the help of artificial intelligence! In a recent study, cameras located in woodlands are being trained to learn the difference between a grey and a red squirrel.

This information is then passed on to "intelligent" feeder boxes which contain either normal food or food laced with contraceptives.

The system is called Squirrel Alert and what it does is take thousands of photos of both grey and red squirrels. It then learns the difference between a grey and a red as they approach the food reward.

If a red approaches, it will only be allowed into the feeder containing food, but if a grey approaches, it will only be allowed into the container with the contraceptives. Ingenious and totally non-invasive.

The system was developed by Genysys Engine in Co Down and presently has a 97% accuracy in telling the two species apart. In the future it will be able to identify individual squirrels by their whiskers.