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Headlines from week beginning 4 July |
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A round up of the top countryside, conservation, wildlife and forestry stories as chosen by the CJS Team.
Your say on special protection for marine birds - Scottish Natural
Heritage Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is inviting views on plans to protect
some of our most important coastal areas for marine birds. A public consultation launched today (Monday) by SNH on behalf of
Scottish Government is asking people to comment on a suite of proposed
Special Protection Areas (pSPAs). The 10 pSPAs are spread around Scotland’s coast at locations
including the Moray Firth, Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides. The
proposals are designed to help a wide range of marine bird species, by
protecting their important areas such as foraging grounds and places
where they roost. Species set to benefit include Sandwich terns and
little tern, black-throated, great northern and red-throated divers,
Slavonian grebe, velvet scoter, red-breasted merganser and European
shag.
RSPB Scotland responds to launch of marine Special Protection Areas
consultation
Rare dormice return to Yorkshire Dales National Park – People’s
Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) Wildlife charity People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the
Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority released 38 rare hazel dormice
(Muscardinus avellanarius) into an undisclosed woodland location near
Aysgarth in the National Park in an attempt to stem the decline of the
species.
Once a familiar sight throughout much of England and Wales, over the
past 100 years dormice have suffered from the loss of woodlands and
hedgerows, as well as changes to traditional countryside management
practices. As a result, the species is now rare and vulnerable to
extinction. The reintroduction follows a similar event in 2008, when dormice
returned to a nearby woodland after a century’s absence from the
Yorkshire Dales. PTES has worked in partnership with the National Park Authority and
Bolton Estate to carefully select a suitable new site near the 2008
location which will provide the best chances for the long-term survival
of the species. Ian White, Dormouse Officer at PTES explains: “The two reintroduction
sites are close enough that the separate dormice populations will
eventually be able to meet up and breed, creating a self-sustaining
population. In addition, the programme of habitat management in the area
will have great benefits for a number of other species too such as birds
and bats.”
£1m HLF support to protect Welsh environments - HLF
Tasked with improving our hedgerows, collecting valuable habitat
information and encouraging young people to take an interest in nature,
the projects will share close to £1million and between them will span
the length and breadth of the country – from Anglesey to Monmouthshire,
Flint to Pembrokeshire. Richard Bellamy, Head of HLF in Wales, explains what he hopes funding
more projects like these in Wales will achieve: “Coming hot on the heels
of Wales Biodiversity Week these fantastic projects are looking to
provide a better place for us to inhabit in Wales, by protecting our
threatened species, plants and natural features and inviting people to
join in with that process.” “When people think of what ‘heritage’ means, they often think of
grand old buildings like castles and rolling estates. But Wales is lucky
enough to also encompass some beautiful landscapes and natural
environments that are home to rare and precious species. By funding
natural heritage projects like The Long Forest and Exploring Gilfach, we
hope more people will realise that looking after our landscape – perhaps
starting in our very own back gardens – is just as important.”
Sad news for spoon-billed sandpipers – Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust These are the only critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper
chicks ever bred in captivity, but sadly neither survived for more than
60 hours. Each weighed only a few grammes and was barely bigger than a
bumble bee.
Seven eggs were laid in total at WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre in
Gloucestershire, of which only two were fertile. The first chick hatched
on Saturday 2 July and it became clear quite soon that it wasn’t well
and nothing could be done. The second chick hatched on Sunday 3 July and
put up a brave effort; it filled everyone’s ears with lots of chirrupy
noise and brought smiles to everyone as it seemed to be thriving and
developing well. But despite 24 hour expert care, on the afternoon of
Tuesday 5 July its health suddenly deteriorated and it slipped away
within a couple of hours. The causes of death aren’t yet known. A specialist post mortem will
be undertaken for both chicks. The deaths are particularly upsetting for the team at WWT because it
has taken three years of encouragement for 23-strong captive flock at
Slimbridge to attempt to breed at all. This has huge implications for
the species as a whole, because only around 200 pairs survive in the
wild and the purpose of the Slimbridge flock is to create a captive
“ark” of breeding birds to keep the species alive if attempts to stop
the bird going extinct in the wild aren’t successful.
but
Double first for Britain as rare chicks hatch - RSPB Two tiny chicks have made history this week when they hatched from
their eggs on an RSPB Scotland nature reserve. There was excitement last month when the world’s smallest species of
gull was confirmed to be nesting in Scotland for the first time and
Britain for only the sixth time, however, this has been eclipsed by the
news that the eggs have successfully hatched, with at least two chicks
being spotted. This is the first record of little gull chicks hatching in Britain,
so everyone will be on tenterhooks for the next few weeks before they
are big enough to take their first flight. Not that the two youngsters
will be aware of the weight of expectation on their shoulders. It seems that their choice of nesting area at RSPB Scotland’s Loch of
Strathbeg nature reserve may have helped so far. The pair has set up
home on the tern nesting island which along with the protection provided
by being an island, is inside a fence designed to keep out ground
predators. Add to this 130 pairs of feisty common tern parents that
share the island and work together to drive off any intruders that they
see as a threat and the young gulls should be relatively safe.
Natural England is set to double its number of apprentices – Natural
England Increased apprenticeship opportunities set to inspire more people to
take up a career in the environmental sector.
Chief Executive James Cross announced the commitment during a visit
to the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve today (6 July) when
he also had the chance to meet current apprentices and get involved in
an important restoration project. Natural England has 18 apprentices – and this is set to double by the
end of the year. Our apprentices currently range in age from their early 20s to their
mid-40s, and backgrounds include ex-forces, arboriculture and art
students. The apprentices are currently funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and
Natural England. Through their 12 to 18 month journey with Natural
England, they pick up essential skills as well as qualifications, such
as level 2 Diplomas in environmental conservation or customer service
qualifications. Of those who have completed apprenticeships this year,
some have found roles with Natural England, and others at the National
Trust and Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Turtle Dove population in a tailspin - BTO The latest Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) report published today
(Thursday 7 July) has
revealed that Turtle Dove numbers have hit a new low, declining by 93%
since 1994. This trend is mirrored across Europe, with a decline of 78%
between 1980 and 2013.
Turtle Doves spend the winter in West Africa, arriving back to the UK
in April to breed. Once in the UK, they prefer areas of bare ground with
open water and mature scrub areas in which to nest, with a plentiful
supply of seed to feed their young. Before the BBS began in 1994,
changes in land management had already impacted the population greatly
and the species has continued to decline to this day. The highest
remaining breeding densities occur in eastern and southern England, and
they have now disappeared from large areas of the country.
Dive in to Scotland’s first Snorkel Trail – Scottish Wildlife Trust Scotland’s first snorkel trail has been created in the north west
Highlands by the Scottish Wildlife Trust as part of its Living Seas
programme, supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The self-led North West Highlands Snorkel Trail features nine beaches
and bays on the coast of Wester Ross and Sutherland, where beginner and
advanced snorkellers can dive down to see the impressive variety of
Scotland’s marine life.
Highlighted locations include Tanera Mor in the Summer Isles,
Camusnagaul and Achmelvich Bay. Marine life that can be seen at the
locations includes dogfish, barrel jellyfish and sea urchins. Noel Hawkins, Living Seas Communities Officer, Scottish Wildlife
Trust said: “The coast of Wester Ross and Sutherland features some
fantastic sheltered headlands and beaches that are great places for
snorkelling. The new trail is self-led, but we are hoping to establish a
training programme for local people to become qualified snorkel
instructors, and also a snorkel club at the local leisure centre to
introduce younger members of the community to snorkelling and their
local marine environment. “Scotland needs healthy living seas that can adapt to climate change.
The snorkel trail will encourage more people to explore the fragile
habitats below the waves and the marine life they support, whilst also
helping to raise awareness of the need to protect them.”
Open Up Countryside Paths For People On Bikes Say Outdoor Groups –
British Cycling British Cycling, a host of outdoor recreation organisations and
celebrity cyclists have today written open letters to environment
secretary Liz
Image: British Cycling Due to archaic public access and rights of way laws, it is currently
illegal for people on bikes to access the majority of the countryside in
England and Wales. At present, if you choose to ride a bike you only have access to less
than a third of the 140,000 miles of public paths. There is also little
access to the three million acres of Open Access Land or the 2,800 miles
of newly created coastal access. Meanwhile, if you are on foot you have
free and open access to all of this land. A British Cycling commissioned poll by YouGov has today revealed that
almost two-thirds of people do not know that they are not allowed to
cycle on the majority of public paths in the countryside. The majority
of people also believe they should be allowed to cycle on them.
Record-breaking gannet arrives home – The Wildlife Trusts
Map showing record-breaking flight path Marathon flight highlights potential impact of proposed off-shore
wind farms A Northern Gannet from Alderney arrived home yesterday evening
(Wednesday) from a foraging trip which is the longest ever recorded for
an adult of its kind. Normally, gannets fly between 300-500km on a
fishing expedition - but this one travelled 2,700km all the way from
Alderney in the Channel Islands, up the English Channel, across the
North Sea to Scandinavian waters – and back again. The intrepid gannet
left Alderney on 30th June - see map showing Cosmo’s route. Named Cosmo by the Alderney sponsor who paid for its tag, the gannet
flew a total distance of over 2,700km in under a week, making this – to
the knowledge of all the experts involved - the longest Northern Gannet
foraging trip on record. Cosmo’s unexpected marathon foray into Scandinavian waters has been
monitored by Alderney Wildlife Trust’s Track-a-Gannet (T.A.G) project.
App wins Heritage Lottery Fund support – Hebridean Whale & Dolphin
Trust
A new smartphone app allowing whale-watch operators and other
seafarers to record sightings of whales, dolphins and porpoises is to be
launched next year by Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, thanks to an
award of more than £79,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The innovative project will allow wildlife tour operators and
enthusiasts to systematically record the locations of marine mammals
using technology available in their pocket. The app will work at sea
without phone reception as it will rely on GPS only, uploading data once
internet coverage is available. Alongside the app development, a programme of free training events
and workshops for the public will be held throughout the west of
Scotland to train volunteers how to identify and record marine wildlife. Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust’s Dr Lauren Hartny-Mills said: “We
are absolutely thrilled to have received the support of the Heritage
Lottery Fund and are confident the project will deliver much needed
long-term monitoring data, as well as engaging local mariners with the
amazing wildlife that the west of Scotland has to offer.”
Is there a future for the small family farm in the UK? – The
Prince’s Countryside Fund A major new independent study commissioned by The Prince’s
Countryside Fund into the future of small family farms across the UK,
has revealed a steep decline in numbers since the beginning of the
century.
Image: Prince's Countryside Fund Over the last two or three decades, small family farms have
experienced profound change. The report set out to explore the future
for these farms by identifying the pace of change, investigating ways in
which they might improve performance and viability as well as putting
forward proposals for improvements to farm management, adjusting
policies and bringing in new blood. Overseen by Professor Michael Winter, a rural policy specialist and
rural social scientist at the University of Exeter, the report revealed
a complex pattern of change with the number of farms declining by half
and showed many smaller farms had been consolidated into expanding
larger farms. One of the largest risks was identified as farm succession. Without
the correct retirement planning and restructuring in place, it is
claimed it will make it more difficult for the ‘older generation to step
back’, yet it confirms that the ‘most profitable farms are those most
likely to have a successor, regardless of size’.
Award for Schools Environment Project - WWT
A project in which schoolchildren help to reduce flooding and
pollution, while learning about wildlife, has won a major national
environmental award. The project was run across 10 schools in North London by the Wildfowl
& Wetlands Trust (WWT), supported by Thames Water and the Environment
Agency. At each school, natural features have been created to show how
wetlands slow down and store heavy rainfall to relieve flooding, and
clean the water by filtering it. The features, including bog gardens and
ponds, also act as hands-on places to learn about nature and the water
cycle. The project won the Best Practice for Innovation Award at the
Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) 2016
Awards. WWT’s Head of Community Working Wetlands, Andy Graham said: “The
great thing about this award is that it’s not just about WWT, Thames
Water and Environment Agency who are names you’d expect to see at these
awards. It’s also about all the schoolchildren, teachers and parents who
helped to plant the bog gardens and ponds, and the teachers who use them
every year to show children how nature helps to protect us all from
floods and pollution. Their enthusiasm has brought our project to life.
I’m very proud for all of them.” Causes and consequences of spatial variation in Willow Warbler sex ratios - BTO New BTO research shows a recent imbalance in Willow Warbler sex
ratios, with 60% of adult birds being male. Such a skewed ratio has
implications for the conservation of this migrant species.
Male-biased sex ratios have been documented in a number of bird
species, in particular those whose breeding populations are small or in
decline. Various reasons have been put forward for why the sex ratio in
a population should move away from one-to-one, with sex-related
differences in mortality or dispersal behaviour two of the most likely.
Understanding which of these factors are important, particularly in the
context of why it is that small and/or declining populations show more
strongly skewed sex ratios, has important consequences for conservation. One way to establish the importance of potential sex-related
differences in mortality, recruitment (the number of young that survive
and join the breeding population) and dispersal for small populations is
to look at a single species. This should be a species for which we have
good information on the local variation in abundance across a wider
spatial scale. Using information from the Constant Effort Site
Scheme (CES) and the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), a new BTO study has
looked at Willow Warbler – a summer migrant, which winters in Africa and
for which there are strong regional differences in both abundance and
population trend here in Britain. Read the paper here: Morrison, C. A., Robinson, R. A., Clark, J. A. &
Gill, J. A. (2016)
Causes and consequences of spatial variation in sex ratios in a
declining bird species. Journal of Animal Ecology.
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12556
Scientific publications Casdo-Coy, N., Martinez-Garcia, E., Sanchez-Jerez, P. & Sanz-Lazaro,
C. (2016)
Mollusc-shell debris can mitigate the deleterious effects of organic
pollution on marine sediments. Journal of Applied Ecology.
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12748 Burgas, D., Juutinen, A. & Byholm, P. (2016)
The cost-effectiveness of using raptor nest sites to identify areas with
high species richness of other taxa. Ecological Indicators.
DOI:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.06.052
Looy, K. V., Lejeun, M. & Verbeke, W. (2016)
Indicators and mechanisms of stability and resilience to climatic and
landscape changes in a remnant calcareous grassland. Ecological
Indicators. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2016.06.036 Glen, E., Price, E. A. C., Caporn, S. J. M., Carroll, J. A., Jones,
L. M. & Scott, R. (2016)
Evaluation of topsoil inversion in U.K. habitat creation and restoration
schemes. Restoration Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/rec.12403 Mitchell, M. G. E., Wu, D., Johansen, K., Maron, M., McAlpine, C. &
Rhodes, J. R. (2016)
Landscape structure influences urban vegetation vertical structure.
Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12741
Robinson, B. S., Inger, R., Crowley, S. L. & Gaston, K. J. (2016)
Weeds on the web: conflicting management advice about an invasive
non-native plant. Journal of Applied Ecology.
DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12712 Wood, T. J., Holand, J. M. & Goulson, D. (2016)
Providing foraging resources for solitary bees on farmland: current
schemes for pollinators benefit a limited suite of species. Journal
of Applied Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.12718
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CJS is not responsible for content of external sites. Details believed correct but given without prejudice. Disclaimer: the views expressed in these news pages do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CJS. |
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Image:
PTES
Wales’s
natural landscape has long been regarded a thing of beauty to be
treasured. It does however need constant care, and thanks to National
Lottery players over 3,000 volunteers will be recruited to look after it
as part of two new initiatives announced today (Monday 4 July).
(c)
Ben Cherry / WWT
Former
Natural England apprentice and now Kingley Vale NNR Reserve Manager,
surveying bees and butterflies on the Kingley Vale NNR © Steve Walker
Jill
Pakenham (BTO)
One
of the snorkel trail sites is on the island of Tanera Mor © Noel Hawkins
Truss
and Welsh environment secretary Lesley Griffiths calling for people on
bikes to have responsible access to more public paths in the England and
Wales countryside.
Hebridean
Whale and Dolphin Trust’s smartphone app wins Heritage Lottery Fund
support
Hollickwood
Primary School children get planting! (WWT)
Willow
Warbler (Jill Pakenham)
