Why Britain is searching for this shrew...

[@LeaveCurious]

Sorry if the sound levels are a little off in places - had microphone issues.

[@rridderbusch518]

I'd rather hear the sounds of *nature* rather than MUZAK. Just sayin'.

[@LordoftheBadgers]

I didn't notice actually! Good video didn't know about these!

[@corvus1238]

@@rridderbusch518 Yes, I agree 100%. I couldn't hear what the people were saying. Why do content makers feel the need to put in background 'music'? I think they think it enhances the viewing experience or makes it look more 'professional'. IT DOESN'T, it just detracts from the information.

[@ConstantChaos1]

Lol at first my phone didnt play any audio and I was like well fuck for a second when I saw this before remembering that I am on an old device that sometimes doesnt load audio lol

[@dasja9966]

I don't have an issue with bad audio, but for me background music is almost always an unwelcome distraction. Still watch the videos though, because they have great content ontherwise. Question: i've heard of a study where cat owners were encouraged to fotograph their cat's preys and send those photos to the researchers. Gave a whole lot of data about the occurence off many animals like rodents, birds and reptiles. Do they use this approach in the UK too to gather data?

[@eric2500]

Calling all patriotic weasels and martins and owls to defend Britian!

[@LeaveCurious]

The owls are certainly getting a hold of them!!

[@ultrademigod]

If they live around houses perhaps domestic cats and foxes can help make a dent as well

[@louiechidwick6034]

When I was young my late Father used to take me on a birdwatching holiday every Autumn to the Isles of Scilly. We rented a cottage for a month on St Mary's but my Father said there was a mouse running around the kitchen that kept him awake all night and one night it even ran over his face! (my Father had a rodent phobia). So I made a simple trap with a milk bottle containing some bread crumbs on a long length of string and lowered it to the floor behind the fridge. That evening I heard it trying to climb out the slippery glass of the bottle, so I rushed into the kitchen and pulled the string to lift the bottle out from behind the fridge, and there it was....................not a mouse but an ultra rare Lesser White Toothed Shrew!! (Scilly Shrew). I took it into the garden to release it and tipped it out into my hand. And there it sat for a few minutes just looking at me like it wasn't bothered by my presence at all. I felt so lucky to have held one of these tiny elusive creatures!!

[@jammiedodger7040]

This is why I think there needs to be a study in to the wildlife in Britain which would look into all the wildlife in and which would determine if a non-native species have a Positive,Neutral or Negative affect on the British ecosystem.

[@MyKharli]

The humans always come out as the worst .

[@spenserhow6275]

Cute little invasive buggers though!

[@motoringnation]

I am 25 miles south of Sunderland, will have to keep an eye out, I know we have shrews in the garden as I've seen them over the years, now I am unsure which type we have. I feel they are smaller than these, but will check.

[@MayYourGodGoWithYou]

This explains why my (indoor) cat would catch shrews inside, and from memory they looked like that big white shrew. This was rural north Dublin.(Finglas/Meath border area).

[@LeaveCurious]

yep, that would most likely be GWTS

[@maebhryan3040]

Oh wow. I thought we only had pygmy shrews here!

[@peterlamont1533]

Well put together video. Snappy, and full of interesting information on a shrew I had never heard of. Thanks! Here (west of Scotland) we have a water shrew I was unaware of until one ran across my vision for almost a second of view but enough time to realise it was definitely a shrew but not a pygmy or common. I looked up the book and there it was!

[@LeaveCurious]

Awesome! Yeah they're quite distinctive!

[@dasja9966]

Fun fact: the dutch name for shrew is spitsmuis. Translated: pointy mouse.😂

[@lobster5114]

Same in german wie call it Spitzmaus

[@jeffreylebowski3216]

In Sweden it's "näbbmus": beak mouse.

[@omnirath]

Musaraigne croissant hon hon hon

[@t_mandry]

I found a shrew lasts week in the chiltern forest but not sure what type

[@susanhanstock6879]

I used to live in Peterborough. And I'm pretty sure there are shrews at Ferry Meadows. Nene Park. I'd go for walks there, and sometimes I'd hear them in the undergrowth.

[@abram3265]

Ah no way you’re on Tunstall Hills! And you can see my house in the opening shots on this 😂😂 been following this channel for ages would have come up if I’d know! Haha. And learning something new about my home area

[@louisegogel7973]

😊😅❤

[@philiptaylor7902]

Thanks Rob, great video. Shame you didn’t get a quote from the cat though

[@TheFabledSCP7000]

Saving our lives, being adorable and being jerks, all at the same time You gotta love cats

[@LeaveCurious]

yeah didn't want to know

[@antonxavier1]

great video. it's so cool to hear from Matt and other experts in the space.

[@LeaveCurious]

Definitely. Matt was full of knowledge we spoke for a good hour. Cheers Anton

[@TheBaconWizard]

And Geoff!

[@kovilansigamoney8033]

Just found one next to my fish pond in Johannesburg South Africa

[@richardmurphy9006]

They are in ireland too seemingly got in with wood products

[@CricketsBay]

I first saw video in 2019 showing how invasive mice and other rodents came to Ireland in hay and straw from continental Europe and England in the 1990's and were still a major concern in imported hay in 2019.

[@christinecollins6389]

Interesting Despite having a large wild garden now I have not seen a wild shrew since I was a tiny child .I found it living in an old discarded jacket on a walk near the river Tyne In Northumberland over 50 years ago . Probably my shrew population is not helped by visiting owls , magpies and crows ☹️

[@vincentx2850]

It is a bit weird though, as the two species definitely overlap quite a lot, with the greater white-toothed shrew having the smaller range.

[@quitlife9279]

Indeed, just watching the video you wouldn't think the pygmy shrew was the species with the vastly greater distribution range. The video is quite lacking in this regard. In terms of competition, it's even more weird that it is the pygmy shrew which shares large overlapping range on the continent with the greater white-toothed shrew that is being pushed out instead of the common shrew, which have a largely non overlapping range with the greater white-toothed shrew, which presumably shows that the two larger species compete for the same niche, while the smaller pygmy shrew coexists with both species on the continent.

[@curtisnixon5313]

Have they been looked for in Shrewsbury?

[@kellydalstok8900]

Great white (cue Jaws theme)

[@LeaveCurious]

dam it missed that in the edit

[@MayYourGodGoWithYou]

Glad I'm not the only one to make the connection

[@anniehill9909]

Thanks!

[@LeaveCurious]

Hey Annie, thank you!

[@stevewiles7132]

Did it come over in a micro dinghy?

[@raphlvlogs271]

can owl pellets fossilise in relatively dry weather or buried underground?

[@TheFabledSCP7000]

Coprolite has been made from more destructive sources, I wouldn't write it off

[@LeaveCurious]

great questions, I assume so if buried underground - would be cool to discover a prehistoric owl pellet!

[@gardentogrill970]

Wish a had seen this video a week are too earlier, our dog caught a few last week and now im curious if the were the invasive ones (im in belgium)

[@alanlittle4589]

I wonder if they'll turn up in Shrewsbury 😂

[@eric2500]

Moggies on alert! Yeah, Geoff!

[@huldu]

I've seen a shrew in person once in my life and it was my cat that caught it when I lived on a farming site for a few years. They look adorable compared to a regular mouse.

[@LeaveCurious]

they are rather sweet.

[@ciara1045]

wow! I live close to Sunderland and I had no idea, thankyou :)

[@LeaveCurious]

keep an eye out for pellets near barn owl roosts!

[@raphlvlogs271]

what species is going to be the most efficient shrew predator in the UK?

[@LeaveCurious]

not sure exactly, likely a barn owl!

[@lmonk9517]

Pygmy shrew and great white toothed shrew co-exist in europe, no? would have been good if you could have seen how they are able to co-exist on the continent but aren't able to in britain and ireland?

[@reallivebluescat]

2:58 you could maybe say shes got shrews on the shroof?

[@roryegan4283]

but only if you had a pathetically defective sensayuma, don't you think?

[@didibellini]

Shrews are very rare in England. We must encourage them as much as possible. They don’t live long, anyway!

[@c3pno]

They should call the non native shrew dinghy diver 👍 i belive they come here via transportation lorries or ships hay or wood or anything agricultural

[@Jo28147]

Their favourite place is Shrewsbury.

[@Debbie-henri]

Some years ago, I watched in horror as a Pygmy shrew killed and ate another Pygmy shrew as I sat in my garden, returning to eat more and more of the corpse throughout the day. I don't know why it resorted to such behaviour as my garden is wild, No Mow for the past 21 years, with more than enough insects for them to eat. I think they have to eat every hour or they die of starvation? (Something like that), but didn't guess they would turn on each other for a meal.

[@MyKharli]

Watching a live newt get chewed to death over 3 days by a beetle larvae in a pond was along those lines. Woodpeckers robbing a nest is pretty gruesome too!

[@sjain8111]

@@MyKharli 😣

[@Scruffi]

Who else heard the Halo multiplayer announcer voice in their head when they read that thumbnail title? No? Just me?

[@matchesmalone866]

I did lol

[@AlexP1-y4g]

Am I correct in saying these occur in the Channel Islands ?

[@massimookissed1023]

Today I found out that there are more than one type of shrew.

[@thruknobulaxii2020]

My neighbour’s cat leaves a dead pigmy shrew on her doorstep at least once a month.

[@massimookissed1023]

Yeah, cats don't seem to eat them. They don't mind killing them though. My ginger boy had a bit of a killing streak with shrews a couple of years ago.

[@Bogwedgle]

@@massimookissed1023 My cat used to bring almost everything into the house alive and basically unharmed Except shrews, she never brought in a shrew alive and usually they were in extremely bad shape.

[@massimookissed1023]

@Bogwedgle Six-thirty in the AM one time, one of my panther girls came running in yelling her head off, jumped on my lap and dropped a live frog on my belly. Thanks, cat (!)

[@dasja9966]

For now my cat only catches insects. Came home yesterday, cat behaved kinda weird, miauwing on the stairs. Really wanted me to come uptairs with her. I did. There was a moth... A big one. On the ceiling. Cat's been sad miauwing for at least half an hour. Wanted to catch it sooooo badly, but the bugger moth just wouldn't come down. 😂

[@thruknobulaxii2020]

@@dasja9966 I have a moth-release apparatus. It’s a 2L plastic lemonade bottle with the base cut across straight. I then have a piece of fiat card to cover the open end (once the moth is inside). Then I can take it outside to release … _fly my pretty… you’re free!_

[@willieclark2256]

Geoffs got a mean mug

[@matthewdavies5875]

Great stuff 👍

[@nathaneadson2019]

I got 1 in a trap the other week. it chewed the tops off the carrots. +3 mice. I dint know it was an illegal immigrant gang. cheers.

[@chir0pter]

This is another nonissue. The greater white tooth shrew is native to continental Europe, as is the common and Pygmy shrew. All three coexist there. Reminder that the UK was connected to Europe until about 9000 years ago. It’s possible that in intensely human disturbed habitat with lots of rodents the larger white tooth will predominate, but this is just a consequence of how intensely developed Ireland and the British isles are

[@Bogwedgle]

That doesn't necessarily make this a nonissue. 9000 years is a long time for an animal with a lifespan of a year, plenty enough time to lose resistance to diseases or behavioural adaptations that allow coexistence with another species. Even just the fact that despite being connected to mainland europe 9000 years ago the GWT is not native to britain suggests pygmy shrew populations here have not coexisted with it for a lot longer than that.

[@chir0pter]

@@Bogwedgle The Ice Ages wiped the British Isles clean of any species that live there today. It was a completely different environment 17,000 years ago, a polar tundra/desert. Everything that recolonized it since had to make its way back from southern refugia. So whatever is “native” is just what happened to be able to make it far enough north to recolonize UK after the climate warmed but before the land bridge submerged. It’s quite likely that all 3 species lived together in the UK during the warmer Eemian interglacial, and definitely during the warmer periods as you go further back. Theyre native to northwestern Europe, they’re native to the UK.

[@chir0pter]

@@Bogwedgle If through some small chance the native pygmies lost behavioral adaptation or immunity, then they simply can be repopulated or strengthened with European populations. But I suspect the issue is one of niche partitioning- and the UK is too densely populated by humans to keep the white tooths from succeeding.

[@quitlife9279]

Yes but it's still an "issue" that species which can coexist on the continent somehow can't do so in UK. If it is a niche partition issue it just shows how ecologically degraded the UK is even compared to the rest of western Europe which is also densely populated.

[@jeffreylebowski3216]

Shrews are not rodents.

[@itsrachelfish]

You say these things are non native but those teeth look perfectly british 🤣

[@LeaveCurious]

great and white?

[@MayYourGodGoWithYou]

@@LeaveCurious great and white, don't suppose they have any relations with Jaws do they.

[@kymodriscoll7759]

Kate Bush is a fan !!! ❤

[@grandmasteryoda6717]

leave curious come to ireland

[@GR3YS0RG4N1CS]

AI generated thumbnail with a freaky extra eye below the ear 😬

[@brianedwards7142]

The cat wasn't very talkative. The shrew had her tongue.

[@BeeLZBeeb]

No, just too shrewd to talk right then..

[@jacob1121]

That thumbnail is absolutely DEMONIC

[@hermanhale9258]

If only Britain was concerned for the English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh as they are for the other native animals.

[@reallivebluescat]

?

[@roryegan4283]

What ARE you trying to say? ZERO sense can be found here

[@BeeLZBeeb]

Was he calling discection a fun childhood hobby? Lmao

[@BsktImp]

Probably like the hobbyists whose only arguably selfish concern is being the first in the country to obtain that rare[-in-the-hobby] non-native reptile, tarantula, bird etc. Then when there's an escape they descend into mental gymnastics and autobrainwashing to avoid any responsibility and to play down any impact: their enjoyment completely outweighs any wider concerns.

[@RCSVirginia]

To @BsktImp Or it could have hitched a ride on a boat or in a cargo box.

[@Shaden0040]

Hey guys I love your show but can you do me one favor can you make it louder can you record it in the louder playback cause it's really quiet it's really hard to hear you guys with a car drives by or siren goes off with a distance it's hard to hear you guys and I'm listening on a laptop speakers so it's always easier to turn you down if need be but it's never easy to turn you up when we can't when you're at your highest volume and I'm going to have my highest volume and I still can't hear you that's a problem so please make your recordings louder either record them louder or adjust them for the playback when you upload them to the upload louder wherever your needle is showing volume level you need to spike it a little bit like double what it is now please thank you guys.

[@morthim]

"ceo mammal society" this titles causes more questions than answers. refering to humans as ceo-mammals is funny, but is there a CFO-reptile society?

[@nhmooytis7058]

Looking in the wrong place Meghan moved to California 😊

[@jammiedodger7040]

Bombardier and BAE should partner up to make a new commercial airliner that’s around the same size as the A220,A320 and B737 on top of being a passenger plane it could also be a cargo aircraft and military aircraft possibly even a early warning aircraft and tanker aircraft benefiting both British industry and Canadian industry while also benefiting both countries air forces.

[@jeffreylebowski3216]

You may be right but are you sure you're commenting on the right video?

[@jammiedodger7040]

@@jeffreylebowski3216 I didn’t comment on the wrong video KZbin did.

[@IfEnjoinder]

[@FlyingTiger-sm5zq]

OK now do the effects of non native migrants on native Brits ...

[@kevdimo6459]

Well we know that the Romans didn’t do anything for Britain!

[@roryegan4283]

In last Ice Age, what became 'Britain' was uninhabitable, just icy waste. So, Do Tell, whence came 'Native Brits'? Drifted in from warmer climes, or a Special Creation by God?

[@thonbrocket2512]

Turn the bloody music off.

[@DSAK55]

They trying to tame it