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[Miss_Croft]

Stewart – I was saying the current population of Palm squirrels appear to be radiating out of Perth Zoo – that is have found a safety in the zoo grounds from predators (Cats, foxes or dogs most probably). But back to my last statement to my knowledge there has never been a bio diversity risk assessment done on these little guys or many other animals in Australia.

By what you are saying – a flock of sheep is a pest species because it breeds in the farmers paddocks. (You have not taken in account the farmer keeps the sheep safe from predators much the same as the Perth Zoo fences protect the palm squirrel’s from predators)

You can release guinea pigs in your back yard – they might bread for a while – but before long they will probably die out due to hawks and other land predators (Cats, foxes and dogs).

JasonL – I also saw many species squirrels in both Thailand and Bali – you can often see them bouncing along the tops of buildings in Thailand. But without the assessment there is no way of determining if they will become a pest in Australia.

As pointed out before a population of Indian palm squirrels was established in Sydney and Adelaide – but since died out. Gray and Red Squirrels in both Melbourne and Ballarat – since died out.

Back to what I was saying – there has never been any bio diversity risk assessment done on Indian Palm Squirrel – and as a result we do not know the potential risk they pose to the Australian environment. What we can say is to date they have not been very successful at colonizing Australia (Two out of three isolated population since vanished)