On Friday 30th September 22 we held our AGM (the
first for a couple of years!) at the Methodist Church, Louth.
The Chair’s and Treasurer’s reports were mercifully brief as
we have done little and spent less over the pandemic years.
The existing committee (Rod Baddon, Jan Boyd, Judith John,
Louise Scott and Biff Vernon) were re-elected for another year and Maggie
Barnes and Dan James have agreed to join.
The main part of the evening was given over to a talk by Stu West. He gave an
update on his previous accounts of the local otters. They are doing well in all
the rivers in our neighbourhood and the population is probably close to the
maximum potential, otters occupying large territories and pretty intolerant of
other otters apart from females with their own offspring. An otter frequently
passes up the Lud through Louth town centre, probably feeding on the American
signal crayfish. This is to the benefit of the fish as the crayfish eat a lot
of fish eggs. It’s one of the ironies of nature that a healthy otter population
is good for a healthy fish population.
The rest of Stu’s talk was about ‘rewilding’. Stu emphasised
the lack of the truly wild in Britain, one of the most nature-depleted countries
on the planet. So he took us to India with an account of his visit to the Sariska
Tiger Reserve, where he didn’t actually see a tiger but he did hear one and got
a photo of a paw print! It was fascinating to learn about the Indian’s attitude
to conservation and re-introduction of an apex predator, one might even, very occasionally,
eat a person. Start here for more about Sariska.
From India Stu next took us to Italy and the Stelvio National Park in search of wolves. Again this apex predator was elusive but we were
introduced to a bearded vulture, Gypaetus barbatus, Europe’s largest bird.
Bearded vultures were persecuted to extinction in the Alps by the early 20th
century but a successful captive breeding and re-introduction programme over
the last forty years has established a growing population, with several
breeding pairs in Stelvio. They occupy a unique niche, living almost
exclusively on the bones of dead mammals, often the remains of wolf or golden
eagle kills. With a pH of 1 their stomachs can digest substantial chunks of
bone in hours. Read more at Vulture Conservation Organisation.
We then went to Britain’s most intact wilderness, but it
involved a bit of canoeing and snorkelling. The kelp forests off the coast of
western Scotland, around Ardnamurchan and the Sound of Arisaig, host the
richest biodiversity from the rock-pools crowded with invertebrates to cetaceans
that come close to the shores. Stu showed us dramatic film of porpoises close
to his canoe. We learnt of the habits of orcas; a once thriving pod based around
the Westers Isles has been reduced to just two males, most likely because of a
build up of PCBs in their bodies. A happier story comes from the waters around
Orkney and Shetland where a pod of thirty or more seem to be thriving. There
are occasional orca sightings in the North Sea but it is thought these belong
to an Icelandic population that sometimes roams far.
In the Q & A session, Stu was asked which species would
be his priority for reintroduction to Britain. Lynx, was his quick reply,
adding that wolf would be good (every mainland European country now has wolves,
even Belgium and the Netherlands) but unlikely to be acceptable to British
public opinion just now. Lynx offer little threat to farm animals, are
secretive and avoid humans. Their hunting of deer would not only control deer
population, which the farming community have failed to do, but alter the
behaviour of deer, changing their grazing patterns in ways that have wider
ecological benefits. Read more at Rewilding Britain
Here's a question posed by Craig Bennett, CEO of The Wildlife Trusts:
Further reading:
Isabella Tree, Wilding
George Monbiot, Feral
George Monbiot, Regenesis
James Rebanks, Shepherd’s Life
James Rebanks, English Pastoral
Lee Schofield, Wild Fell
Others are available.
