Press Releases - December 2021

The grey partridge’s annual appearance in festive carols and cards is a good reminder to make plans for habitat improvements to help this much-loved farmland bird throughout the year.

In response to three decades of declining Atlantic salmon in most of their native range, scientists are looking at how the management of juvenile habitat can maximise the numbers and quality of seaward-migrating salmon smolts to increase survival at sea and the number of returning spawners.

Bournemouth University students are working alongside conservation experts on an EU-wide project to understand the migration habits of wild salmon and sea trout in the river Frome in Dorset, where the salmon population has been monitored for nearly 50 years.

The UK’s farmers, gamekeepers and land managers are being urged to get involved in the GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count from 4-20 February 2022, and make a crucial difference to wildlife.

The latest assessment of the status of all the UK’s 245 regularly occurring bird species – Birds of Conservation Concern 5 – shows that 70 species are now of ‘highest conservation concern’ and have been placed on the assessment’s Red List. The newly revised Red List now includes familiar species, such as the swift, house martin and greenfinch that have been added for the first time.