Ocean Action Wood Pastures Dormouse Update Our Vital Work to Pine Marten Genetics Protect Marine Water Voles Animals and Habitats Red Squirrel Disease
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people’s trust for endangered species WildliAUTUMNf 2017e WorldISSUE 12 Overseas ISSN 2049-8268 Cambodian crocodiles Irrawaddy river dolphins Orangutans UK Ocean action Wood pastures Dormouse update Our vital work to Pine marten genetics protect marine Water voles animals and habitats Red squirrel disease Hares and rabbits The noisy dark Riverford tales Familar rabbits, elusive The way we survey and Read our exclusive mountain hares and study bats is changing fast. Frontline by conservationist mad-eyed brown hares – Discover how you can be and founder of Riverford we’re helping all of Britain’s part of a monitoring Organic Farmers, Guy lagomorphs revolution Watson WILDLIFE WORLD RED SQUIRRELS Bringing the Red squirrels are fighting a life and death battle against wild back to life the steady encroachment of Wildlife World is published their grey cousins. by People’s Trust for Fortunately Scotland Endangered Species remains, at least partially, a red stronghold. To bolster Our wildlife is disappearing. Almost the resilience of reds there, two thirds of species in the UK have we’re funding Trees for Life declined in the past 50 years. There’s to re-establish populations nothing natural or inevitable about this. away from the frontline It can be stopped. And everyone can threat of greys, in areas of play a part. That’s why People’s Trust suitable habitat in north- for Endangered Species exists. west Scotland. © Peter Cairn © Peter Find out more www.ptes.org WILDLIFE WORLD 04 PTES people Meet Ursula Gregory, one of our army of dedicated and indispensible volunteer surveyors 05 Frontline © iStockphoto.com / Jamie_Hall © iStockphoto.com Guy Watson has built a business and a brand on his passion for © Ashley Leiman © Ashley farming and conservation 08 18 06 Conservation news A quick roundup of recent news at home and abroad, and the view from Nelson’s column 08 Species focus In this edition Find out some of the ways we’re monitoring hares and rabbits – key components of Britain’s landscape 10 Scrapbook We love hearing from friends of PTES, be they researchers or volunteers, so please, tell us your story 12 Troubled waters Marine species the world over are in crisis, but it’s not too late. We’re © Marie Louis acting to save them while we can 16 10 16 PTES in action How we’re turning your support into positive action to help threatened species and habitats around the world and at home in the UK © Iain Green www.wildwonder.co.uk © Iain Green 22 Insider © Flora and Fauna International International and Fauna © Flora Ecologist Stuart Newson has turned his expertise in monitoring birds to a new group, bats, with exciting results 18 20 Editor: Dr Amy-Jane Beer Editorial team: Jill Nelson, Zoe Roden, Nida Al-Fulaij Welcome Art Editor: Zoe Roden Illustration: Hayley Cove Science is humanity’s best attempt at understanding the world. No Print: 4-Print one can claim that all our information is correct, which is why it’s Cover image: important to keep gathering more and better data that will help us Marie Louis make connections and predictions. Many of those predictions make The opinions expressed in this uncomfortable reading – climate change, species extinction, magazine are not necessarily those of ecological breakdown. But it’s important to remember that the same People’s Trust for Endangered Species. © Dave Willis © Dave insights can also point to solutions. And when the solutions are Contact us known, it’s important to shout about them! We know conservation PTES Wildlife World Magazine 3 Cloisters House works, and every success we see gives us a huge boost. 8 Battersea Park Road When it comes to the projects funded by PTES, every step of progress is due, ultimately, to London SW8 4BG our supporters, and I hope you will enjoy reading here about the many ways you’re making www.ptes.org a difference.⚫ [email protected] 020 7498 4533 facebook.com/ptes.org people’s twitter.com/PTES trust for Dr Amy-Jane Beer, Editor instagram.com/ptes_org endangered twitter.com/AmyJaneBeer Registered charity no. 274206 species Wildlife World 3 YOUR PTES PTES PTES PEOPLE LOVES LINESCAPES Hugh Warwick £16.99 (hardback) Hedgehog ambassador and long- standing friend of PTES, Hugh Warwick, examines the ways man-made features such as roads, railways, hedgerows and canals connect and fragment our lives and landscape. Every year we invite our supporters to become citizen scientists and help us gather data about British mammals. Thousands rise to the challenge, including Ursula Gregory, who has contributed to Living With Mammals every year so far – a unique acheivement! BRITAIN’S SPIDERS Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford was very surprised to hear I’d been contributing to & Helen Smith Living with Mammals for 14 years. I wouldn’t call RRP £17.95 (flexi cover) Imyself a scientist, though I did study science at This authoritative new photo guide, university before going on to do other things. I I wouldn’t say I’m catalogues Britain’s spiders in fabulous wouldn’t even say that I’m particularly outdoorsy. In detail. An unrivalled resource for fact my main qualification for contributing is probably a scientist, or amateur and professional naturalists. just that we have a good-sized back garden, by London standards, and I can watch for mammals there from even very out- my kitchen. For us, ‘mammals’ really means foxes and doorsy, but PTES grey squirrels. We don’t encourage the latter, though they keep finding ways to help themselves from our surveys are easy bird feeders. The foxes are welcome though, and we do to do from home sometimes feed them scraps because we’d rather see them healthy. They dispose of food waste that can’t be composted. It’s been interesting over the years to see how the numbers change. Some years there are hardly any, but so far they’ve always bounced back. I think I first heard about the survey though a PTES mailing. It’s easy to take part – we don’t set aside time to watch, just sit down once a a week and review what REWILD we can remember seeing. I sometimes tell my friends Nick Baker about it, and hopefully I’ve encouraged a few of them RRP £16.99 (hardback) to join in! ⚫ A wonderfully accessible exploration of the science and psychology of our precious connection with nature. Find out more about our surveys www.ptes.org/surveys 4 Wildlife World FRONTLINE In the mind and in the soil Guy Watson of Riverford Organic Farmers considers the conservation lessons learned after 30 years of working with nature, rather than controlling it. t takes two years to convert a farm to organic production and get marginal field corners and boggy areas to re-wild, mixing livestock the relevant certification. When I took the leap, thirty years ago, I with arable systems or perhaps pursuing the ultimate goals of was told this was the time it took for the soil and the head to agro-forestry and permaculture. Iadapt. In reality, the head took longer; organic farming goes well The best organic farmers encourage diversity, welcome some beyond turning one’s back on agro-chemicals. Conventional farmers weeds and pests and devote much of their time to managing the draw pride and satisfaction from rows of uniform, dark green crops balance. In our greenhouses we even encourage aphids with non-crop stretching into the distance in a lush monoculture, preferably plants in order to maintain a population of parasitic wasps and without a bug or weed in sight. The control they exert over nature to predatory ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies. Our picking staff are impose such uniformity is a mark of their skill and power. It takes welly-wearing entomologists, constantly monitoring population time to accept, and even longer to celebrate, the fact that such balance and occasionally introducing cultured predators and tidiness is neither sustainable or parasites when needed. The desirable. By contrast, organic interventions are subtle and farms tend to be a bit of a mess require observation and constant – or highly diverse and learning; far more scientific than ecologically rich depending on obliterating every insect, good your mind-set. and bad, with nerve toxins. Organic farming is often Outside, once a crop is defined as farming without established, we are happy to see synthetic fertilisers and some weeds, especially later in pesticides. Though broadly true, the season when they provide I much prefer to describe it as winter ground cover. Our fields farming in partnership and are relatively small and © Riverford sympathy with nature. So much surrounded by glorious Devon of intensive farming is about banks that shelter and support replacing ecological complexity vital predatory insects. with something much more The best organic farmers actively Occasionally the restrictions and simple. Any ecologist will know added cost of small field size can that it takes a lot of inputs; encourage diversity, welcome some be frustrating, but they bring normally fuel, machinery and many benefits and contribute chemicals to maintain the weeds and pests and devote much of hugely to wildlife value. instability of a monoculture; their time to mantaining the balance It’s not perfect; we do nature tends so strongly towards sometimes lose crops but every diversity that a farmer must year we get better at managing constantly intervene to maintain a simplified system. To my our field ecology and soil life. Our soils are so diverse and rich in frustration, organic farmers are often characterised as Luddite or bacteria, fungi and invertebrates that we almost never see significant anti-science, when nothing could be further from the truth.