2022

We are delighted to be able to send our culled rabbits to be used as feed for juvenile golden eagles at the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project (SSGEP). Remarkably, this project has been able to more than double the population of golden eagles in the south of Scotland since 2018.

Hello and welcome to another Annual Report of our activities at Auchnerran. What a challenging year it has been!

The UK has long been known as a country of animal lovers, with our wildlife and countryside inspiring songs and art for centuries. However, in the UK we are also sadly one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, and a number of our beloved species face declining populations for a variety of causes. This unfortunately includes our songbirds, with many species having seen a sharp decline in populations.

In the past, many believed that the curlew’s haunting cry lamented the souls of lost sailors. Sad, then, to reflect that without concerted effort to save the curlew, we may soon mourn its loss to many parts of Scotland.

The capercaillie is a truly magnificent species, one that almost seems too significant and primeval to occur in the small remaining pockets of Caledonian pine forests in the 21st century. The small, declining population of this species is now centred in Strathspey, with fewer individuals occurring in Deeside and Easter Ross. This, sadly, makes observing capercaillie particularly rare in Scotland.