Press Releases - August 2020

The unsung heroes of conservation are being celebrated by a new website, Working for Wildlife, launched by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). The website profiles what the GWCT calls ‘Working Conservationists’: farmers and land managers across the UK who have made a long-term commitment to manage their land for the benefit of wildlife.

Declines in adult salmon on the River Frome witnessed in recent years show no sign of abating, according to the latest figures in a fisheries report.

The GWCT is urging Defra and Natural England to consider compelling new practitioner-based evidence of the impact of changes to licences for the control of gulls on threatened wading birds, including curlew and lapwing.

The GWCT Advisory Services in Scotland has launched a new Muirburn Advisory Service. With many moors now considering the approaching muirburn season, commencing 1 October, this new service provides an excellent opportunity for managers to review their muirburn practices and is particularly important in light of the recent Scottish Government commissioned review of grouse moor management, which made recommendations for increased regulation of muirburn activities.

While the LACS report prompts an important discussion about the conservation of predators and their prey species, it reflects at best a snapshot in time that it is already out of date.

Set to become an invaluable tool for farmers, shoot managers, hunters and agri-environment policy makers, ‘Farming with Nature’ summarises the leading peer-reviewed research into grey partridge conservation and sets the context of partridge decline and the farmland biodiversity crisis across Europe.

Bayer Crop Science UK’s new Head of Business, Marion McPherson, today handed over 80 pairs of children’s wellington boots to Dr Alastair Leake, Director of the Allerton Trust. The wellington boots, of various sizes, will be used when parties of school children visit the Allerton Trust farm in Loddington.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is once again inviting school pupils across the area to get creative and enter its school art competition.

Numbers of young salmon in Wales are lower following warmer winters and wetter springs, according to a new study commissioned by Natural Resources Wales (NRW). These findings might explain the widespread juvenile salmon crash observed after the then record warm and wet winter and spring of 2015-16.

With a different Welsh farming policy on its way as the Basic Payments Scheme and Glastir are phased out, it's a good time to start assessing your farm to see what potential it can offer to attract future environmental payments once they have been decided, says GWCT Wales.