Just a few of weeks after celebrating the rat-free status of the Shiants Isles becoming official there has been even more good news for the project – it’s been nominated for a Natura2000 award! The winner of this award is decided by public vote so we need your help please to get as many votes as we can. Here Laura Bambini, RSPB Scotland’s seabird recovery officer, fills us in on how you can vote for the project to win this award and why it is deserving of such an accolade.
Celebrating Shiants successes
It has been an exciting start to the final year of the Shiants Isles Recovery Project, an EU LIFE+ funded partnership between the Nicolson family, custodians of the Shiant Isles, Scottish Natural Heritage and RSPB Scotland to provide safe breeding grounds for Scotland’s globally threatened seabirds on this cluster of islands, five miles off the coast of Harris. First off, we celebrated the official rat-free declaration at the beginning of March this year. This means that the islands are now a safer haven for nesting seabirds, many of which are suffering from serious population declines, to raise their chicks.
And now there is some more exciting news – we’ve found out that the Shiants seabird recovery project has been shortlisted for a Natura2000 award! This nomination is a fantastic recognition of the hard work and dedication of our project team over the last few years, and the great success the project has enjoyed so far. It is also an acknowledgement that by working together, we can achieve great things for saving nature. Without our supporters, this project would not have been possible, and to us, this nomination is an opportunity to celebrate exactly that: together we can!
It has been incredibly rewarding to see that the hard work and effort put in to making the Shiant isles a safe place for seabirds to breed start to pay off. We had some challenging conditions to deal with while spending a whole winter on the islands over 2015/16 undertaking the rat eradication. In the last two summers, we have been delighted to witness the islands’ native wildlife flourish, with landbirds successfully fledging young once more and the seabirds enjoying good breeding success as well. It is too early to say whether this is a result of the rat removal, but it can only have helped the birds.
We were absolutely over the moon when, in summer 2017, we had European storm-petrel respond to our call playback surveys. This meant that these sparrow-sized birds, our smallest seabird, are at least attempting to breed on the islands now, something they would have not managed if rats were still present.
The Natura2000 award is an EU citizens’ award, and the winner is selected by a public vote which is where you come in – please do take a moment to vote for the project! Voting is open until 22 April 2018 so join in to celebrate the success of the Shiants seabird recovery project, and vote for us here: http://natura2000award-application.eu/
Thank you!
The Shiant Isles Recovery Project is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Nicolson Family, it is funded by EU LIFE+ Nature [LIFE13 NAT/UK/000209 – LIFE Shiants] and private donations. The eradication is being led by Wildlife Management International with the support of Engebrets and Sea Harris Ltd.