Innovative mammal conservation
Generally, I quietly work behind the administrative scenes and am known more for my style (as in writing guidelines) than my natural science. However, I was drawn to the work of Vincent Wildlife Trust because of my fondness – call it obsession – for all-things Mustelidae. In January 1977, a second-year (Yr 8) form teacher Read More
22nd September 2022
Having just completed a degree in environmental science, it was important for me to have the experience that would be essential in gaining a career in conservation. Now, I was not your usual early to mid-twenties student fresh out of school and full of ideas; I was approaching 50 and looking to begin a new Read More
30th May 2022
Despite being in my third year of my PhD studying bats, I had yet to see a bat up close in person. I study bat genetics and how they relate to white-nose disease tolerance, and the extent of my contact with bats had been extracting DNA from little scraps of bat skin from the lab Read More
13th May 2022
The Trust owns seven buildings in County Kerry that held just under 2,000 adult lesser horseshoe bats in 2021. We rely on two long-term volunteers, Nora Coffey and Maire O’Connell, to conduct emergence counts at six of these each summer, between the last week of May and the first week of July. Two of these, Read More
15th March 2022
Having never seen a weasel or stoat for more than a few seconds at the most and, also never having captured one with a trail camera, VWT Volunteers’ newsletter about ‘Mostelas’ was very intriguing. Following a quick email exchange with Laura, Volunteering and Community Engagement Officer at VWT, I soon had the plans to make Read More
26th January 2022
I am a PhD student at Durham University and I work with the citizen science project MammalWeb to better understand how we can use camera traps to monitor wild mammals and engage members of the public in the process. I am enjoying my studies but unfortunately, as I am in the final year, I am Read More
15th December 2021
Why weasels and stoats? Despite their undeniably charismatic appeal, small mustelids like weasels and stoats, are some of our least studied mammals. In part, this is because they are notoriously challenging to study, and populations have historically not been of conservation concern. However, whilst both species are considered to be widespread and common in Britain, Read More
9th November 2021
Although times have been difficult over the last 18 months and we’ve all had to adapt our working lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s good to see that greater horseshoe bats are still showing encouraging signs of population recovery. During July 2020, we documented record bat numbers at four of our six greater horseshoe bat Read More
7th September 2021
For many years my wife and I had walked regularly in local woodlands enjoying the spring carpets of bluebells, the autumn crunch of beech nuts under foot, the scamper of squirrels and the cheerful chatter of birds in the treetops. ‘I wonder if there are otters here?’ we would muse. ‘That’s a big hole – Read More
5th July 2021
It is more than five years since I drove from Scotland to a vast expanse of woodland in mid-Wales with a precious cargo of four pine martens − of varying temperaments! Feeding blueberries to a pine marten in the car park of a service station on the M6 is something I will always remember. This Read More
12th April 2021
