Nature News from RSPB Scotland

EPISODE 26 ORKNEY NATIVE WILDLIFE PROJECT SPECIAL

• RSPB Scotland

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In this special edition of the podcast Stephen is in Orkney to hear about work to protect its special, native wildlife.

Orkney  has its own native Vole species and also hosts globally important populations of seabirds, waders and other species. But that wildlife is under threat from an invasive predator, the Stoat. 

RSPB Scotland is part of a groundbreaking project that has set out to eradicate Stoats and protect native wildlife. Stephen hears from those involved in trapping, monitoring and biosecurity as part of this enormous undertaking.

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and Orkney Islands Council with generous support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and EU LIFE (LIFE17 UK/NAT/000557) as well as in kind and financial contributions from partners. The mop-up methodology trial was supported by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.

Hannah Finlay:

This is Nature News from RSBB Scotland.

Stephen Magee:

Hello and welcome to Nature News from RSBB Scotland, the podcast for people who love nature and want to know how to help it. This is a special edition looking at an incredibly ambitious project. I've been to Orkney to find out more about the Orkney Native Wildlife Project, so join me on a trip to some stunning places with some very committed people working hard for nature. Hi, I in Orkney. More specifically, I'm on RSBB Scotland's Hobbister Reserve, which is just a few miles outside of Kirkwall. More specifically than that, I have found a little spot relatively out of the wind which is no mean feat, as any of you who have been to Orkney will know and I'm looking out over Scapa Flow. There's the odd Arctic Tern flicking by. There's some Eiders out there. The flow in front of me is the big kind of bowl of water, like giant enclosed natural harbour. It's just changing colour the entire time as the sun comes in and out from the clouds. It is absolutely stunning and very Orcadian looking. And as I walk down the path, there are long wooden boxes situated every o and they're normally kind of down in a ditch or along a long fence or a dyke line and those are traps set by the Orkney Native Wildlife Project, and that project is why I'm here in Orkney. It's an enormous undertaking designed to rid Orkney of a non-native predator, and that predator is the Stoat, and I've come here to find out first of all why we're doing that, how we're doing it and how we're getting on. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to peel myself away as a Fulmar just glides past and go and do my actual job and find out a bit more about this. Feel free to join me. The sun is gradually burning through the mist.

Stephen Magee:

We are at Marwick Head and this is my first time here. It is an absolutely stunning series of cliffs. When we arrived, the mist was just clear ing and the sea was pounding against the rocks, and now it's burnt off and you can see there's cliffs out to our left, cliffs out to our right, there's Fulmars, there's Gannets. It's amazing. And I'm here with Sarah Sankey, who is the Area Operations Manager for the RSPB in Orkney - do O . I've got the job title right. That's fine. Let's start by talking about here. So if I come to Seabird Colony, the last thing I would think of is Stoats. But we just saw one coming up here. We just saw one. What are the Stoats doing here and how much of a problem, are they?

Sarah Sankey:

The Stoats are a massive problem for all of our ground nesting birds. They're perfectly able to go up and down cliffs.

Stephen Magee:

I didn't realise they'd go after cliff nesters as well.

Sarah Sankey:

Yep, they have a very high metabolic rate, so they eat a lot.

Stephen Magee:

High metabolic rate is scientifi a a for being hungry all the time right.

Sarah Sankey:

Basically, yes. There's various calculations about if Stoats were human sized, how much they'd need to eat, and one calculation suggests that they'd need to eat the equivalent of 41 fish suppers a day.

Stephen Magee:

Oh man, even in my leaner student drinking times I couldn't have manage tha ri. hat is and remarkable, and seeing one here. bviously you watch it moving through the undergrowth here, and there's rabbit warrens on the top of the cliffs and it would appear, and then totally disappear again, which just reflects how difficult it must be to deal with these guys, because this landscape is perfect for them.

Sarah Sankey:

This landscape is perfect, but also because Orkney is such an important place for native wildlife, there's also a lot of food for Stoats, so usually removing an animal, you work on hunger to catch them, so it is quite hard when they've got so much to eat.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, abundant prey. prey .

Sarah Sankey:

Exactly, you know, and even in the winter time, because we have this lovely little species called the Orkney Vole, which is not found anywhere else and they keep the Stoats going in the winter time as well. Stoats you've just seen a Stoat. They're very long and thin so they can squeeze down the vole holes, so they just follow the Voles.

Stephen Magee:

And let's go back to first principles actually. So how long have Stoats been on Orkney and have we got any idea how they got here?

Sarah Sankey:

No, we first confirmed that they were in Orkney in 2010 and we have no idea how they got here. We do know that they didn't get here themselves, because it's too far to swim. Essentially, it's too far to swim and they would have got here a long time ago. I mean, Stoats are native just over the water on the Scottish mainland but never in Orkney. So they either got here accidentally in some sort of cargo or someone brought them here intentionally.

Stephen Magee:

And since they've been here, what have they been doing?

Sarah Sankey:

Well, in a few short years probably about seven years they've managed to spread across 227 square miles of the Orkney mainland and the islands linked to the Orkney mainland. Once they'd filled that up, then obviously the many other islands were at risk, because they're perfectly within the swimming range of Stoats, which is known to be about three kilometres.

Stephen Magee:

It's amazing to think about that small animal being able to swim that far and, of course, whether here like one of the things if you've never been to Orkney, first of all pl to Orkney it's amazing, but one of the things that's remarkable about here is just the sheer abundance of birds that were once very common in much of the rest of the UK, so particularly things like breeding waders, Redshank , Oystercatcher, Curlew, Pe c wits, Dunlin, all these kind of things right, which nest on the ground and are therefore incredibly vulnerable to this kind of predator right.

Sarah Sankey:

Absolutely. I mean, we're still lucky that we've got these species of waders breeding across Orkney and also like in really quite high density but really vulnerable to Stoats. And because Stoats aren't native to Orkney, they're not used to having that predator here. And we've got the added problem that there's nothing to control the Stoats either. So you might think, well, there's Stoats living in harmony on the UK mainland, across the mainland, and we still have wildlife, but there are plenty of species that will be controlling the Stoats population. We're not in that situation here. So the Stoat numbers will increase by how much food there is for them. There's nothing to control that population surge. And you know you can see that as evidence, despite the fact that we've been trapping here for some time that we've already seen a Stoat here. You know you don't actually see Stoat on the UK mainland very often.

Stephen Magee:

No, they are rare things to see. So our response to this threat from the Stoats is the Native Wildlife Project project. Explain to people what that is and what it sets out to do.

Sarah Sankey:

Yes, the project sets out to eradicate Stoats from Orkney to prevent their spread, whilst we're doing that, to other islands, but ultimately to eradicate the Stoats from Orkney. So there's none left.

Stephen Magee:

Because this is Orkney. We are sheltered behind the van. To get out of the way. I'm with Hannah. Say H you all, hannah. Hello, annah, ell us where you fit in with the Orkney Native Wildlife Project.

Hannah Finlay:

Right, so yeah, my name's Hannah Finlay and I'm one of the Trapper team leaders which looks after a team of eight trappers in my area, and I coordinate the East Mainland and the Linked Isles.

Stephen Magee:

Why are we trapping Stoats on Orkney?

Hannah Finlay:

So, sadly for the Stoats, they're just not meant to be here, and because they're not meant to be here, that means it has a knock-on effect of all the things that are meant to be here. So the iconic Orkney Vole the one that's only found here closest relative down in Belgium somewhere is prime prey for the Stoat, and as the Stoat has no major predators here, it can just crack on. So it poses a real big threat to what we already have here a nice, rich biodiversity.

Stephen Magee:

The paradox of that is that normally, as a conservation organisation, when we are learning about a species, it's because we want to understand its behaviour, because we want to conserve it. What's it like to be doing all that learning in science for a species that ultimately, here on Orkney, to be clear, not in its wider natural range, right, but here on Orkney we're trying to get rid of it, we're physically killing them?

Hannah Finlay:

So it is a strange one and I say sometimes I find it hard as a coming from a conservation background, knowing that I'm coming here to these amazing creatures, which people will be lucky to see elsewhere, on the mainland even, and I come here to kill them, but the impact that they're having on the native wildlife, that's the driver that you see, the Oystercatchers, the Curlew, flying high and calling out when you're walking through the fields, that's the, that's the drive to it.

Stephen Magee:

If people see evidence of a Stoat where they can like so they can get to this. Posters all at like it's coming on the ferry. There's loads of posters in the ferry. There's posters everywhere, right all around. They get in touch with you. If somebody gets in touch with you and you get that information, what do you do with it?

Hannah Finlay:

So the first instance it comes comes into us as the team leaders and we we screen that information, be it from Facebook or from the website or from a phone call, and we think about the validity of the sighting where it is. If we have access. When it was, how recent was it, you know? If it's a really recent sighting, that gives us the opportunity to use our tracker dogs. So if you're wanting to respond to that sighting and find out where those Stoats have actually gone, we can deploy our tracker dogs, which pick up the scent of the Stoats and can can direct us to the areas where they've been running, where we'll most likely be able to catch them.

Stephen Magee:

We will pick up the scent of the tracker dogs later on the podcast, right, so don't worry for those of you're hearing tracker dogs and your ears are picking up. We'll hear a lot more about that, but but when we get an indication, either from the tracker dogs, that the animals are around or anywhere else, these this fast response thing, is pretty impressive.

Hannah Finlay:

Oh yes, so we've developed our traps themselves into - for you, without the eyes on the ground we have. ur general trap box is a large box weighing around 15 kilos which has two kill traps inside. While these have been great as network traps, one of our trappers thought up the idea that, huh, maybe to get into all these ditches and these smaller places and to conceal them in the stone walls and stuff, maybe we could make them a bit smaller and a bit more open. So we've redesigned our traps to a cage trap with a smaller trap inside, and these we've termed as our response traps. So it's just another tool in our box that we can use, and especially in these instances where we're responding to sightings, where we might be on the roadside, but we know that they're there and we find evidence in the ditch and it's very easy to put these smaller traps in.

Stephen Magee:

So I'm looking at a section of there's a wee bit of Moorland here and I've got Lindsay with me. Hello, Lindsay, Hello. I have just been out with Lindsay and some of our star pupils who are dogs amazing dogs, Stoat detection dogs and watching them work it's pretty amazing. What do these dogs do?

Lindsey Taylor:

So we have a couple of kinds of dogs working on the project at the moment, and the Springer Spaniel Skye and Riggs that I have are both scat detection dogs, so they basically cover large areas of ground looking for Stoat poo for us. If they find it, we can then use that information to give to the trappers, which will help them place traps, and it gives us an idea of whether we have Stoats in that area or not. And then I also have Spud, who's my tracking dog, and he just refines the search a bit more so he'll come in and he'll show us exactly where the Stoat is running, which is really useful for the trappers.

Stephen Magee:

And Spud's a black lab.

Lindsey Taylor:

Spud is a black lab.

Stephen Magee:

And subject to all the normal things that black labs are like. He's like I think you said he was cheeky.

Lindsey Taylor:

He is very cheeky. Very boisterous and great fun to work.

Stephen Magee:

But I'll tell you the interesting thing about like. So I'm gonna admit right up front here, like I don't really know that much about dogs and I was watching them work. I'm like see, when he switches on, so you've got them on this big, huge, long orange lead right and he's like cutting about, kind of like being a dog to me like being like a pet dog.

Lindsey Taylor:

And then all of a sudden, it's like a switch goes, it's amazing It really is, and Spud's actually a really good dog to work for tracking because he is actually really easy to read his body language and because really that's what we're looking for. We're looking for the body language as to when he's on the trail of a Stoat and when he's off the trail of a Stoat, and with Spud, his tail kind of gives me the most information that I need from him. But also we use the long line on the caller to give us pressure, because we actually get quite a lot of information from the pressure on the lead and it means then that we can also work out, you know, how strong that track is, just by the pressure that's coming through to us.

Stephen Magee:

One thing we should make clear for people right up front. Right is that these dogs are not like hunting Stoats. Right, these dogs are helping us understand where the Stoats are. But if you were saying to me, like there's been times before when there's actually been Stoats nearby and they're not interested in the Stoats, they're only interested in the poo, how do you achieve that?

Lindsey Taylor:

So we basically make it a big game to the dogs and so their drive from we sort of really tap into the drive for a ball or a toy, you know, and we use that. So it we turn it into a big game. So we start them off with lots of self retrieves and we get them on the scent of a Kong. That's what we use as a training scent.

Stephen Magee:

A Kong is like this plastic thing you can put food or like a treat in or something right.

Lindsey Taylor:

Yeah, and we start them off in the red Kong and it basically means that we sort of get them on that scent, we get them having fun, we get them working, then we transition them using that Kong. We'll transition them over to their actual scent. So in this case it's Stoat poo and we do do a lot of work around steadiness with our dogs because we don't want them interfering with livestock and we don't want them interfering with wildlife and we don't want them interfering with the Stoats. They're not hunting dogs at all. So as they transition over and we do the steadiness, their work becomes all about finding that poo, to the point that they ignore everything else around them because they are so focused on finding that poo or, in Spud's case, finding that Stoat track, because then they get their ball, then they get their reward.

Stephen Magee:

What's it like to be, both in the case of Spud, physically and in the case of all the dogs like, emotionally and mentally connect it to a working dog like that you know to be, to be, to be like because you're in a team with them right and it's super intimate.

Lindsey Taylor:

It really is. I find it hard to kind of put into words what just the relationship you have with your working dog. All I can say is, having had pet dogs and rescue dogs and the working dogs is, the bond that you have with your working dog is on a different level to a bond you have with your pet because you work as a team, very much as a team. They are equal, if not above me, in terms of their ability. I am there to guide, I am there to give them their play, I am there to guide them in their training and to give them good work-life balance and a, you know, a decent kind of environment to live and work in.

Lindsey Taylor:

But really they are just outstanding in what they can do. And it becomes telepathic because you and the dog are so in tune that you learn to read the smallest changes in behaviour so you can tell people things that are about to happen before they actually happen, just by reading that dog. And it takes a long time to build that knowledge of that dog and to build the relationship with the dog. You know it takes months and months, and months to build that kind of relationship with the dog where they trust you 100% and you trust them 100% and what you have is poetry and motion when it all comes together and the dogs are working for you, and it's so difficult to put that bond into words because it is unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

Stephen Magee:

The other thing I was really struck by watching the dogs work is what an amazing tool you know the evolution of dogs has provided for us. Right, you know it's these like. So, if you've never seen Stoat scat and why should you have, right, unless you're doing this job right, Stoat scat quite small, yeah, like it's like what? Like the little bits are five centimetres long top, something like little stringy things, you know, and like one one of the ones that Spud, I think, found was like actually buried under. You had to dig it out. It was buried under the heather, yeah, and it was insane, very, very old as well.

Lindsey Taylor:

And yeah, I mean these dogs every single day. I think I know their capabilities. And then they just throw something at you and you, you sort of sit there having dug around in this heather, and I always say their noses are better than my eyes, because sometimes I just can't find it. But when you do, and you've dug and you've dug and you dug, and you find this really old fragment of scat and you look at them and you think, wow, you know your nose is amazing, especially the conditions these dogs have to work in Orkney and I think that's important to say. In Orkney we don't have the privilege of waiting for days that only have 10 mile an hour winds.

Lindsey Taylor:

You know that's why we are behind a van, exactly, yeah, trying to stop the wind noise. You know we have to ask our dogs to work in conditions that most people would never work a dog in. You know we're working them, sometimes 30, 40 mile an hour winds I have videos of Spud tracking in conditions that are just you would never ask a dog to track in. And our dogs, they have to learn to work in this weather. And when you see them working in, you know rain and winds and things like that and then still find really difficult finds. And you do then just have this moment of appreciation of just how amazing your dog is and how good their noses are. And again, that, just for me, it reinforces their play even more because you know they 100% deserve every single reward of play that they get, because they're what they do for us we could not do as humans ourselves Do you think that you've got the best job in the whole world?

Lindsey Taylor:

I do. I mean, you can't get much better than being outside all day with a dog in the countryside, you know, and and what's so lovely is we get to go to places that you know you wouldn't go on your average walk. You know, I've seen bits of coastline that I would never would have seen had I not been doing this job. You know, I get to go out with my best friend every single day and then I get to take them home, and then I get to take them to the beaches they reward because they've done an amazing day's work, and you know and then take them home and sit and play games with them in the evening and it's just. You know it's. It's not a job, it's a lifestyle and it is just the luckiest, best job that you could ever have So just behind me is the Ring of Brodgar, amazing standing stone site.

Stephen Magee:

But I am not here for Orkney's Neolithic history. I'm here with Beth Mullier, who's one of the residential volunteers in the project, and, Beth, you've been showing me a bit about the monitoring the project does yeah yeah, so. So what do you monitor for? And why?

Beth Mullier:

So I've been looking at the Orkney Vole and the wader species that we have up here on Orkney so I was with you.

Stephen Magee:

So I was with y. Then you were doing a little bit of a Orkney Vole survey, which largely seems to involve um grubbing about in the grass looking for absolutely tiny things. Yeah, that basically explains it.

Beth Mullier:

Um, it's walking out into the middle of nowhere in Orkney and going onto heather moors or bogs and rooting around in the mud to try and find little tiny bits of grass that have been nibbled by the Voles or little tiny droppings from the Voles. both.

Stephen Magee:

I couldn't believe you found them because, like, just just r. I mean, the undergrowth is really dense and thick in rank and you're pulling the grass apart. You're looking first of all for, like, the little tunnels they make and stuff like that.

Beth Mullier:

And then, yeah, tell me about that. yeah, so we're also looking for runs and moss. So moss is linked to the Orkney Vole vole, so we also note that down on our surveys. Um, but yeah, the runs are where the Voles voles are and that's why we look for the droppings and the clippings, because it's almost impossible to actually see the Voles voles, so these are sort of a substitute of how many of the Voles voles there . Yeah yeah, have you ever actually seen one?

Beth Mullier:

Um, I've only seen one once, um, on the drive to a Vole survey, which was, you know, typical um, and it just sort of ran across the road. And that's the only time I've seen them very, very briefly and from a a A. nd nd when you're looking at, because I was amazed as well when you were showing me.

Stephen Magee:

I was having a look at the poo right and you were saying, oh, this is old poo and this is new poo and stuff. How much can you read from these signs about about the behavior of the Voles here?

Beth Mullier:

Um, it's mainly to detect about, um, how recently the Voles have been here. So obviously, an old dropping means probably means that the Voles sort of ran through this area at some point and potentially, you know, just had a poo and then moved on um, whereas a newer dropping means it was there more recently, um, and you can tell by the sort of color and the texture of the poo, which is a strange new skill to have obtained. It is a bit weird as well like what what did you do today?

Beth Mullier:

I rooted around in mud for some Vole poo like yeah, it's not a normal job But it's not all Voles.

Stephen Magee:

You're also doing the monitoring of the waders as well, because, ultimately, one of the main reasons that we're doing this is because we want to try and protect wader populations from predation by a non-native predator, right? So what are you trying to learn about the waders and what's it like doing that?

Beth Mullier:

Um, so we're trying to look at wader productivity, so how well the waders are breeding here, basically how many chicks hatch, how many chicks fledged, that sort of thing. So it's a lot of sitting in hedges or bushes and looking at the birds and hoping that they'll sit down on a nest at some point, and then, you know, walking out into a field, that's to find this tiny, tiny little nest that looks exactly like the rest of the grass and then just keeping an eye on it, basically just to see what happens to it, whether it hatches or whether, you know, something comes and predates it and what might be predating it. And and you're you're a volunteer, yeah, and you're working pretty hard on this kind of stuff.

Stephen Magee:

Like what's your motivation for doing it?

Beth Mullier:

To have a job in conservation. I want to do this for the rest of my working life. That's what I want to do. It's what I've wanted to do for a while. So if I have to come here and volunteer for six months, I'm quite happy to do that, and I've gained so many skills. It's amazing how much they've given back to me. I've obviously given a lot of time, but it's amazing how many skills I've been able to learn up here.

Stephen Magee:

And ultimately you're part of something bigger right.

Beth Mullier:

Yeah, that's. Another brilliant thing is that the project you know, the largest eradication anyone's ever tried, and being a part of that's an insane start to a conservation career.

Stephen Magee:

I am in the back workshop of the Orkney Native Wild life project. Behind me there's like, how many traps do you think that is? We've got about 500 traps here behind you. Wow, 500 traps, right, and that is Leanne Sinclair, who's the project manager here. Well, I can give folk a bit of a sense of the scale of it. How many folk are working here, how busy is it?

Leanne Sinclair:

Yeah, well, we have 36 staff members here, both part-time and full-time. We cover all avenues of the project.

Stephen Magee:

Obviously, there's a lot of projects RSPB's involved in and quite often it's like maybe three or four or five or six people working on it. I came here and it's like it's a whole workplace full of people, right? So what are the kind of range of jobs that people are doing?

Leanne Sinclair:

Yeah, that's one of the things I really like about this place is it's the range of people and the range of jobs. So we have trapers going out every day, we have people working in biosecurity, we've got dog handlers, we've got office staff, we've got loads of volunteers. I mean I'm saying 36, that's paid members of staff, but we've got about 94 volunteers as well.

Stephen Magee:

Almost 100 volunteers.

Leanne Sinclair:

Yep, which is we couldn't do this project without them, obviously. So, yeah, it's really big. It's quite a big project to be involved in, yeah, so what kind of things are the volunteers doing? Everything from. Some are trapping on their own land, so that's part of the volunteers. We have volunteers coming in doing monitoring, bird mountain monitoring, , v run. We m . people coming in and just helping within different aspects on here data management sometimes they can input data for us Really everywhere. We've got two residential volunteers at any one time as well, and they do everything within the project from well, everything. I've repeated there, all that, all avenues of it.

Stephen Magee:

When it comes to like, a big part of this is about the voles, right? So you're from here. How like do most people not really know they've got like a unique vole? Is it a source of like pride? Like, where does it fit in?

Leanne Sinclair:

Yeah, we're pretty proud of our vole, the Orkney Vole it's. I don't know if you've seen it yet, Stephen, but they're pretty massive. They're like the size of your fist. They're big chunky .

Hannah Finlay:

Which is muckle for a vole right.

Leanne Sinclair:

They're huge and they're quite. They can be a bit silly in docile as well, which is the problem, but they're great. They're a great food source for the Stoat, obviously, because the Stoat follows the vole and the vole tunnels the transects. They just follow them in and they're easy prey for them. And they're big and meaty. So one vole's going to give them a lot of food source. But the vole itself is great for wildlife here too. So your Short-Eared Owls, your Hen Harrier, you know they all feed off the voles as well.

Stephen Magee:

And one of the other things I wondered, like there's a lot of people come to work here on this project. It's like do you get to see Orkney a bit through their eyes when they turn up? Is that quite an interesting thing as well to see all these folk who've come here from, like you know, working in backgrounds and conservation, not just all over the UK but all over the world. You know bumping into people here who've worked on like Maritius in various other places. Like how do they react to Orkney?

Leanne Sinclair:

Yeah, it's really strange because obviously I've lived here all my life so you can take things for granted because it's in your doorstep and I've actually learnt some things from those that's come up here, because the majority of people have come up to the project to work for the project. Most people love Orkney for lots of reasons. The wildlife in Orkney is amazing just the daylight hours in the summer. The darkness in the winter even. They don't even seem to mind that. But you do learn a lot and people seem to fall in love with Orkney. It's just got a special kind of thing about it. But yeah, we're pretty passionate here. Orcadians are passionate about Orkney. We love Orkney. We're here for a reason you know it's in a nice place to be and those people coming up see it from a different point of view. But yeah, it's a great place to be.

Stephen Magee:

Right, we are loitering at the ferry terminal at Rousay. I'm with Adam Robertson. Oh yeah, we have just come across to Rousay, which is an island. Is it like 20 minutes in the boat?

Adam Robertson:

Yeah, depends if it stops off somewhere else.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, but it's like you know it's not far away from mainland, but there is one crucial difference between Rousay and the mainland when it comes to Stoats. And what is that difference?

Adam Robertson:

Here there are none, and on the Orkney mainland there are still quite a few. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen Magee:

So, as I understand it, Stoats are confirmed to be present on Orkney mainland, and if you've never been Orkney, there's this odd thing that quite a lot of the islands are joined up by causeways, so they're referred to as, like the Linked Isles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like you know, South Ronaldsay up, so there's, unfortunately, Stoats all up and down that.

Adam Robertson:

Yeah.

Stephen Magee:

But there are lots of islands in the archipelago that thankfully do not have Stoats, and Rousay is one of them. It is one of them. So we have come here to have a little look at what we are doing to try and make sure that stays the case.

Adam Robertson:

Yes, that's the plan Going to see some biosecurity traps.

Stephen Magee:

So, we've come up the hill an amazing view right across the sound, and we're looking back at mainland, where there are Stoats, and we are here on Rousay where there are none am I right?

Adam Robertson:

Hopefully no Stoats. Yeah, that's the idea.

Stephen Magee:

So what are we doing to make sure that that continues to be the case?

Adam Robertson:

So Rousay and a couple of the other islands that are within swimming distance for Stoats, which is said to be about three kilometers, they can swim three kilometeres In the sea. Yeah, and there was one in New Zealand I think that swam five, so they might be able to swim further than three.

Stephen Magee:

Probably the Michael Phelps of Stoats.

Adam Robertson:

So, Rousay, as you can see, it's just a little bit of water, so that's easily within swimming distance for Stoats, as is Shappensey, Hoy, Flotta, quite a lot of the Orkney Islands. So on all of these islands we have biosecurity traps, and that's generally a ring of traps around the outside of the island. The idea is, if a Stoat gets onto the island, it'll go into one of those traps and get caught. We also have volunteers who are active on a lot of the islands and they help to maintain the traps but also to keep islands vigilant, and so people are keeping an eye out.

Stephen Magee:

So we've seen one of the traps here, that ring of traps that you're talking about. Are we pretty confident that that's the kind of measure that would actually make a difference, if the negative story you know, if a Stoat making it actually happened happen?

Adam Robertson:

Yeah, we are. I mean, they have to be checked fairly regularly and I think the eyes and ears of the people in the community is one of our strongest assets. But yeah, we've caught 4,670 something Stoats to date on the Orkney mainland. That's almost exclusively in traps, so we know the traps work.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, and really like a lot of things. Actually, as I go along, I'm learning about this project like that communal effort. You know, volunteers plus eyes in the community.

Adam Robertson:

I think so. Yeah, I think it's absolutely vital. I mean, this project literally can't function without land access and without public sightings, so we need the community in Orkney on board to have any chance of succeeding. Yeah, if a Stoat is reported and we think it's credible, then we will have quite a strong response essentially, and we'll come out with the conservation dogs and the full biosecurity team to assess the situation.

Stephen Magee:

I suppose Stoats really emphasise actually how important biosecurity is more widely. Right, you know so people may well be familiar with you know if you're visiting, say, a seabird colony, you know always to check your luggage and try and make sure you're not taking mice, rats or any other kind of invasive. You know, and that is biosecurity, like that wider biosecurity agenda, also important for this project.

Adam Robertson:

It is really important. Yeah, I mean Stoats. Orkney itself is quite a bit more than three kilometres away from the Scottish mainland, so Stoats didn't get to Orkney by swimming right. Someone probably brought them and we don't really know how that happened. I don't think we're ever going to know. But going forward, once we've eradicated Stoats from Orkney, it's absolutely vital that they don't come back. So that's going to involve checking freight probably in the future, and agreements with local people, education to really make people realise how valuable native wildlife is and how damaging Stoats are for it.

Stephen Magee:

I'm back at Marwick Head sun's out. It's lovely. I haven't met all these different people working on different aspects of the project. I mean, when I came I suppose I really just thought about the trapping. That's what I was thinking before I came here, but it's obviously so much more than that. But obviously, like, the scale of it is what really comes across, like the number of people working on it, you know, the number of animals that are actually taking out the picture, but also the scale of the tasks still to do. And I suppose that's the outstanding question for me is like where are we in this process and where's it going?

Sarah Sankey:

So we've removed over four and a half thousand Stoats. So far We've carried out a massive over 330,000 checks of the traps in the network to get us to that point, and we're desperately trying to get to the point where we've removed enough of the population that we can then do very focused response to the remaining animals that we've got left.

Stephen Magee:

It's such a long journey this. Have we made the progress that we hope to make, or is it proving to be really quite complicated and tough? Because at the end of the day people need to remember this is the most ambitious project of its type that has ever been attempted, not just in the UK, but really, arguably, anywhere.

Sarah Sankey:

Yeah, we're breaking new ground. Fair to say, we're having to design totally new methodologies here to try and remove these Stoats, so it's constantly a challenge. We're working in a populated area. We've had COVID lockdowns and restrictions that we've had to work around that have allowed population recovery. We've had challenges getting access to all the land that we need to.

Stephen Magee:

But this is all done by consent right. People need to understand this. We need people to help us. Obviously, the major thing that the general public can do is reporting sightings right, but also we need the support of the community and giving us access to the land to trap, Exactly to trap, and to go on with our detection dogs to find those last remaining Stoats.

Sarah Sankey:

It's essential. We couldn't possibly do this, even think of doing an eradication, without having access to land, and we're delighted to say that over 900 people have given us access to land to do that, because they value the native wildlife and appreciate the way the native wildlife supports the economy as well.

Stephen Magee:

But if we've learned anything from the history of Stoats here so far, in the short time frame they've been here, if we don't get on all of that land we need to get on to, it's potentially just a reservoir for them to come back.

Sarah Sankey:

Exactly, if we don't have access to a bit that happens to have a breeding female and we can't remove the breeding female in the offspring, then we can't eradicate.

Stephen Magee:

Thinking about that. You know, after the blood, sweat, tears, money that's gone into it, how t even begin to think about it not f u eel Feel you?

Sarah Sankey:

We always knew that there was a risk when we started. You can't start the world's largest Stoat eradication, and the first one in Europe, without accepting that there is a risk.

Stephen Magee:

The price of ambition is like., Yeah yeah, a risk of failure.

Sarah Sankey:

But what do you do? Do you not try? Because you know that Stoats are ultimately going to decimate the incredibly important native wildlife of Orkney. So do we not try because there's a risk of failure? Or do we absolutely give it our best shot and say, okay, this is a challenge, but we're going to give it a go, and I go for the. et's give it a go rather than just watch it happen.

Stephen Magee:

And that may mean that this project takes longer than we thought, right.

Sarah Sankey:

Absolutely. We had to make a best estimate of how long it would take, but nobody's tried to remove Stoats over this big an area in this much of a populated area, with the limitations that we have in the UK for how we remove Stoats. So, yeah, there is a huge risk.

Stephen Magee:

I've been enormously impressed with what's what's what's what's happening. Right, it's so many people, a really diverse range of activity, right, because when I came I was just thinking it's just going to be like traps. It's more than that, right, how. But it must be all consuming for you. Do you think we're winning?

Sarah Sankey:

I think we are winning. I think that all the data that we're collecting shows that we're reducing the population. We're managing to catch the breeding females, we're managing to catch the families, but I do think it's going to take longer and I do think that we're going to need another phase to the eradication, because I think this first phase of this network of 7,000 traps is not removing the population enough to get us into the next phase.

Stephen Magee:

But ultimately, having come this far and with the threat we know this poses to the natural heritage of these amazing places, it's a job that's got to be finished.

Sarah Sankey:

Absolutely Like trying to control Stoats and sufficiently to stop them spreading to more islands To control them is, rather than eradicate them. Yeah, trying to reduce the population enough that they're not doing that. Devastating damage to the native wildlife and not spreading to more islands would be almost as costly as what we're doing now, but you'd have to do it forever.

Stephen Magee:

So of course, for me it's time to leave Orkney. It is a paradox, at the end of the day, all these people working single-mindedly on a conservation project that, at the core of it, does involve the eradication of an animal and everybody I've spoken to has got some conflicted feelings about that but nevertheless feels that at the end of the day, it's a job that has to be done. It's clear that that job's proving more complicated than perhaps it first anticipated, but then also people are not surprised. It's more complicated because when you're working with the natural world, that's just part of the landscape, because you will learn as you go and you'll discover more things about how you're going to achieve your goals. But that core goal, that core goal of protecting Orkney's native wildlife, the Voles, the ground-nesting birds, even the seabirds, that doesn't change and that is certainly the goal that everybody I've met here is focused on. That's it for this special edition of the podcast.

Stephen Magee:

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and Orkney Islands Council, with generous support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and EU Life, as well as in kind and financial contributions from partners. The mop up methodology trial was supported by the Scottish Government's Nature Restoration Fund managed by NatureScot. The podcast will be back next month. If you enjoyed this edition, please do leave us a review wherever you listen and tell a friend about the pod. Thanks for listening and until next time. Goodbye.