Badger Vaccination
For many years the badger family at UWNR had been threatened by the unnecessary nationwide badger cull. In 2020 working with the brilliant people from The Badger Trust, I created a series of strategically placed bait stations to encourage this charismatic mammal to forage away from the neighbouring dairy farm and move deeper into the land at UWNR. Manipulating their foraging behaviour was likely to reduce the amount of contact they had with the dairy cows - this limiting the chances of TB spreading from badger to cow.
It worked, but required many hours of diligent labour and at times a small team of helpers - thanks goes to Annie, Alison and Tim.
Even with this concerted effort, it was pretty stressful knowing that the badgers were under threat of being killed. Imagine UWNR without them…
Completely out of the blue, in spring 2022 an offer came to have the badgers at UWNR vaccinated. It was a moment of relief and elation. Huge thanks to Gareth Harris and Peter Shallcross for making this happen.
For the best part of a month, we habituated the badges to the vaccination cages. These were placed in runs and close to the existing bait stations. The whole process was overseen by Kiera, a highly skilled and knowledgeable ecologist. Nor, who for many years has done the John Muir Conservation Award at UWNR, gave massively valuable assistance. It was extraordinary witnessing Keira vaccinate the badgers - she was gentle, quick & calm. Her approach and mood affected each badger and they too were calm and visibly stress free. On release they ambled past us completely at ease. And the outcome is just wonderful - the badger family at UWNR is now removed from the cull and they can live their lives in safety.
The Drought!
I am not sure I need to write much about this ‘weather event’…love and hate that expression. What is clear to me is that our fauna and flora is not equipped to deal with temperatures, which daily hit high-to-mid 30s.
We watered (huge thanks to Patrick Carew and Harry James) the orchard and hedge and thankfully didn’t lose any plants. But we did graft & sweat a lot. What is of greater and immediate concern is the probable collapse of the field vole population. Fresh grass is a cornerstone requirement of this species and by early July the fields at UWNR were completely desiccated and devoid of this basic food source. Feild voles play a key role in the ecology of UWNR (and by extension much of lowland England) - they are a key prey species for middle guild predators like barn owls, weasels, tawny owls, foxes, stoats and sometimes grey herons.
Given this situation, I have set up the barn owl barn 6 - 8 weeks earlier than I typically would. And immediately the barn owls are using their winter hunting habitat. I was completely amazed to find this rat skull in the middle of a fresh pellet - unequivocal evidence of barn owls predating on this sizeable and formidable mammal!
Other highlights from the spring and summer:
The Hobby. Oh, what a bird - it is beyond compare…OK a Goshawk is very impressive, but the flying ability of this raptor is completely jaw dropping. Is there another bird of prey, which can change its flight path at full velocity with such shuddering reactivity. It seems to defy logic and physics - how does its body withstand the tight wild arcs it draws, as it pursues its dragonfly quarry? On a few occasions I was privileged to observe, filled with wonder and awe, this bird relentlessly and accurately hunted over the lake. It has migrated south now - back to equatorial Africa - I hope to see it in 2023.
Whiskered bats have moved in. OK need to clarify here - 1 bat has moved in but this is significant. When we built the barn owl barn, we installed bat panels on the exterior walls. For years they were unused and unoccupied, but that all changed this spring. Sara King from Rewilding Britain first spotted bat pooh on the ground beneath one of the panels and then Gareth captured this confirmatory image. It is a lone male whiskered bat and just perhaps its presence will give rise to others using this roosting habitat. Hope so. Build it and they will come applies yet again…yeah yeah it took a while I know, but it worked in the end.
A few lines about other spring / summer happenings; the grass snakes were both very numerous and active, the frogs and toads scattered another generation of youngsters across UWNR - in the 1000’s, the barn owls raised another brood of raucous youngsters, the dragonflies and damselflies reveled in the heat, the tawny owls hunted regularly in the woodland at UWNR, a stoat seemed to clear out the remaining rats from the barn owl barn, our butterfly species count went up to 17 with the presence of the common blue and the whiskered bats had a successful breeding season. Rewilding works!
But what is wrong with these people?
A wee bit of context here - lets be really clear, biodiversity in the UK is in a very perilous state. Using data from the IUCN, the UK is one lowest ranked nations when it comes to ‘biodiversity intactness’ (the state of its nature). Recent revisions of this data may take us from the bottom 10%, to the bottom 5%. It is that bad. To begin to address this crisis a range of conservation measures, initiatives and practices are required. Within this mix Rewilding surely has a place and this place needs to be acknowledged and properly understood. (At UWNR species counts show levels of biodiversity have improved significantly since 2014…as habitats develop and improve).
So, what is Rewilding - I think Rewilding Britain has a brilliant (the best?) definition: Rewilding is about creating the conditions for nature to thrive, re-establishing natural processes to repair ecosystems and boost biodiversity. It’s not about reintroducing wolf or lynx or elk or bison or bear…its about repair, regeneration, restoration, renaturing.
Why then do people, who should and do know better agitate, spread disinformation, unnecessarily disrupt and try to snuff out a conservation method, which has its place and adds value. Why do they do this? What are they trying to gain? Are they seeking attention? It confounds, makes me angry and depresses me. Recently on a podcast called ‘The Rest is Politics’ (September 15th, minute 16) one of the speakers makes the claim that ‘we’ve taken millions of acres out of cultivation to rewild them’. No, we haven’t. So far 1% of the UK has been rewilded - that is 250,000 hectares (620,000 acres). Not millions of acres. Why didn’t the speaker hit on this fact, I wonder: Pheasant and partridge shoots occupy 3 million hectares (the total UK land mass is 25 million hectares) so, put another way that is 12% of the total land mass (ref GWCT). And 8% of UK is used for grouse shooting (ref Avery). This land use is not about feeding the nation, its not about our food security - it is about people perversely killing for leisure and pleasure. Why is rewilding singled out?
And just for good measure we had this completely unnecessary contribution - again why?