Anyone seen Elvis? Island all shook up over elusive squirrel

The grey squirrel was first spotted on Monday afternoon at car dealership Bluechip in Grandes Maisons Road. Staff there nicknamed ‘him’ Elvis due to his sudden rise to fame.

Director Sally Wakeford said she had fielded quite a few calls since Elvis appeared on their site, but she ruled out the squirrel being imported to the island in one of their cars.

‘He definitely didn’t come over in one of our vehicles, and I can only think it came from Ferryspeed next door,’ she said.

‘Our mechanic spotted him first sitting on an engine and thought it was a rat, and then he got startled by a cat that was showing an interest and ran up a lamppost. The last time we saw him was about 4pm, and we have no idea which way he headed.’

Ferryspeed general manager Martyn Langlois said that he had gone back to look at CCTV and had witnessed the moment that Elvis set foot in Guernsey.

‘It came out of a trailer of animal feed at 7.14am on Monday,’ he said.

‘Apparently our staff tried to catch it and informed the vet.

‘It disappeared after it nearly got run over by a forklift truck, and hasn’t been seen since.’

The public have been urged to pass on information on Elvis’s whereabouts to the GSPCA.

However manager Steve Byrne said while his team were happy to collate and pass on information on the squirrel’s location, ultimately the fate of Elvis would be rest with States vet David Chamberlain.

‘We are there to deal with sick or injured animals so this is really down up to the States,’ he said.

‘The animal is an invasive species, so in the way that they deal with Asian Hornets, this would be up to them.’

There has been speculation that Elvis may in fact be ‘Elvisa’ and may not be ‘alone’.

‘We have no actual indication of what sex this particular squirrel is as the photos are from the wrong angle,’ said Mr Byrne.

‘It is early in the breeding season so it being a pregnant female is unlikely but not impossible, and it has been a mild February.’

Grey squirrels generally give birth in March or April after a six-week gestation period and can have a second litter later in the summer.

While an average litter has three babies, as many as nine may be born.

Despite there being an estimated 2.7m. grey squirrels living in the UK they are not a native species.

They were first introduced to England from North America in 1876 as an ornamental species to populate the grounds of stately homes.

Around 30 separate introductions occurred until 1930 when the damage caused by the grey squirrel was recognised and it was made illegal to release a grey squirrel to the wild.

Since then, the UK population of endemic red squirrels has dropped from around 3.5m. to just an estimated 140,000.

A spokesman for the States of Guernsey said that Mr Chamberlain had been made aware of the situation but for the time being the advice was to contact the GSPCA if they see Elvis.