A squirrel exterminator claims he has been branded racist for his attempts to help boost red population numbers.

Andrew Hodgkinson is a “red squirrel ranger”, shooting grey squirrels in a bid to protect the native species, whose population is rapidly declining.

He is a member of the Penrith and District Red Squirrel Group, a volunteer-led charity focusing on grey squirrel control.

“In everything that you do there’s always going to be people that have different views to you,” he said.

“We’ll get called racist, xenophobic, all sorts of things like that, crazy things.

“They say that we’re racist because we shoot the greys because they’re grey, not red.

“So it’s like we’re shooting them because of the colour of their fur, which it really isn't. Xenophobic because we’re promoting native species so it’s all about British stuff. That’s how they see us.”