Blogs

Curlew Country, which launches its webcam programme once again this week, has done an amazing job in getting boots on the ground – practical, hands-on working with farmers and land managers – to recover these much-loved birds that have almost disappeared from our countryside.

This morning the first PIT-tagged adult of the year returned to the River Frome. In fact, the first two tagged adult salmon were detected within five minutes of each other at East Stoke!

Scotland hosts two thirds of the remaining 5,000 black grouse males in the UK, where they occupy moorland and woodland fringe habitats. The last national survey in 2005 identified overall stability in northern areas, but 49% and 69% declines in the southeast and southwest.

Countryside Correspondent Harry Shukman failed to mention that the scientific paper he was referring to actually found that any pressure to illegally kill predators was both rare and resisted by gamekeepers.

The Atlantic Salmon Trust, Salmon & Trout Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust are delighted to publish the proceedings of the 2019 SAMARCH Project International Salmonid Coastal and Marine Telemetry Workshop, which was held in Southampton on the 5th and 6th of November 2019.

The students of GWCT 2019/20 have stepped up across the organisation to ensure business can run as smoothly as possible. Now dotted around the country, we are still working hard as ever to keep projects running, and some have even stayed onsite to ensure vital work can continue.

Nellie III has made a welcome return to the Woodcock Watch map with a series of new transmissions.

Across the country, whatever our circumstances, we all have a lot on our minds at the moment – health, employment and income, and very high levels of uncertainty in many areas. However, the GWCT must continue its fight for an evidence-based approach to conservation.

Everyone is worried about curlew in Wales – our breeding population has seen a 62 percent decline over the past 25 years.