We're lucky to have incredible women at the RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science, leading the charge on conservation projects both within the UK and abroad. If you’re interested in working in the environment sector, check out today’s blog on what kind of things you could get up to! This International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we’re celebrating our team and their exciting (and varied) work.
Penny Gardner is a Conservation Scientist for the International Department, working on the Greater Gola Landscape in West Africa (mostly) from her desk in the UK. She has the fantastic job of working on survey data from a vast array of fascinating species ranging from Pygmy hippo to Western Chimpanzee to White-necked Picarthartes that was collected using non-invasive method such as remote infrared camera trapping.
Using statistics, Penny tries to unpick where species occur across the Gola landscape and identify which areas are more rich in biodiversity and should therefore be prioritised for conservation purposes. These results are then used to inform future land-use planning by local stakeholders.
From left to right: Evelyn, from the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia, Penny using a GPS tracker, Luba Meshkova from RSPB’s Date Unit and Mami who is the only female ranger at the Forestry Development Authority in Liberia.
Seabirds for the win!
Featured above is our Seabird Monitoring Team! This is Lucy Wright, Claudia Tapia-Harris, Viv Hastie, Liz Holmes, Em Witcutt and Ellie Owen (from left to right). The group are at RSPB Fowlsheugh Nature Reserve training the team in seabird monitoring and tracking skills. They're working working on a project to understand whether offshore wind farms affect seabird breeding success or offshore foraging behaviour, although in 2022 work had to be rapidly adapted to incorporate monitoring the colony for signs of Avian Influenza.
The work is part of a partnership project with UKCEH, BioSS and The Forth and Tay Regional Advisory group, and is funded by Seagreen Wind Energy, Neart na Gaoithe Offshore Wind Limited and SSE Renewables
Jude Lane studies the Bass Rock Gannets to better understand their behaviours at sea to inform offshore wind farm consenting and how Gannets might be impacted by developments. This is done through tracking individual birds with GPS tags and monitoring their annual survival before and after offshore wind farms are constructed. She’s also working in collaboration with multiple partners to better understand the impact of HPAI on Gannets.
Kirsty Franklin has recently started as a Conservation Scientist in the Monitoring team. She’s working on various seabird tracking projects, including analysing GPS tracking data to estimate Kittiwake flight heights, and will be using tracking technology to investigate seabird interactions with offshore wind farms. Last summer, she worked at RSPB Bempton Cliffs Nature Reserve (pictured) as a Seabird Research Assistant monitoring Kittiwakes and Gannets. Not a bad office to work from!
Zoe Deakin’s current research focuses on the UK’s nocturnally-active burrow-nesting seabirds, the petrels and shearwaters. These species are particularly challenging to study due to their small size and secretive behaviour, but some populations have undergone large declines and it’s important that we understand the threats they face. Zoe uses acoustic techniques to survey and monitor breeding populations, and helps to improve our understanding of the behaviour and distributions of storm-petrels at sea using tiny tracking devices.
Here’s Sophie Bennett, in a previous role studying seabird ecology on the Isle of May with the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Sophie has recently joined the RSPB as a Conservation Scientist and will be using bioacoustics to monitor European Storm Petrels in Shetland.
Emma Witcutt works on a collaborative project looking at the impact of offshore wind on cliff-nesting seabirds like Guillemots and Kittiwakes on the east coast of Scotland. She spends her summers at St Abbs Head, monitoring seabird breeding attempts and tracking their foraging trips. It’s all change this summer though, as she’ll be on secondment with the Life on the Edge project, looking at ways to create and improve habitat for shorebirds like terns and waders.
The importance of Social Science
The Social Science team get to work in a range of projects both in the UK and abroad, to help collaborate with local communities and conservation partners to find out about species, habitats, their threats and what may help their future.
Last year, Joelene Hughes, had the privilege of working with our international Birdlife colleagues and their partners in Kazakhstan, getting to meet locals and discuss life in the mountains as part of a conservation monitoring project looking at the Semirechensk Salamander.
As part of the social science team, Jessie Fitts is working on an exciting project that understands dog owners and their relationship with natural spaces. She is using behaviour change science to develop an intervention aimed at reducing disturbance to beach-nesting birds. Her fieldwork is based on Norfolk beaches, where several beach-nesting birds breed over the summer months
Vic Carr is another Conservation Scientist in Social Science team, her research is about understanding and evaluating how we can best connect people with nature and encourage action to save nature. Vic really enjoys meeting people at RSPB nature activities around the UK, including this wildlife cruise on the River Mersey in 2022.
Tash Constant (top right) is a Social Scientist supporting our international conservation work. Much of our research abroad involves working closely with project partners and communities to explore sustainable conservation outcomes for people and nature. On January of this year, Tash had the privilege of working with the Turks and Caicos National Trust to kick start a new project which will mobilise community knowledge and action to inform the development of participatory management plan for the uninhabited East Caicos Island in the Caribbean.
Up in the mountains
Four of our women scientists are working as part of Cairngorms Connect, an ambitious 200-year vision to enhance habitats, species and ecological processes across a vast area within the Cairngorms National Park. The Cairngorms Connect partnership area is a landscape full of potential for bold and ambitious ecological restoration.
It’s also a great place for science and monitoring projects. The size of the area, and the huge depth of ecological and practical knowledge among the Cairngorms Connect partners and our collaborators, is a great basis for an applied science programme.
In the extreme Cairngorms Mountains, a genetic rescue project is underway to help montane willows. 4,500 Downy Willow seedlings have been planted so far across the Loch Avon basin on RSPB Abernethy to support the fragmented natural population. Here’s Ellie Dimabro-Denson, checking the willows to help us understand what could impact their survival.
We’re also working in the forests to restore more natural conditions, part of which involves increasing the quantity and quality of dead wood habitats. Lucy Mason (left) and Pip Gullett (right) are busy setting up and checking flight interception traps to catch and monitor beetles in a new deadwood patch in native pine forest.
Creating deadwood is just some of the restoration methods being implemented in native Scottish pine forest and monitored as part of Cairngorms Connect. Beetles play a vital role in ecosystem processes like nutrient cycling, which alongside their vast diversity makes them a great indicator of restoration success in forest habitats.
Christina Hunt is the Conservation Scientist on the species indicator project, which is monitoring the effects of forest restoration on biodiversity. Her fieldwork for this project involves hiking to remote upland locations across the Cairngorms National Park and camping out overnight so that she can survey moths using a light trap and conduct bird surveys at dusk and dawn.
The data she’s collected will be combined with data from previous years and future years to assess whether the habitat restoration work being done by Cairngorms Connect is improving biodiversity.
Ashley Lyons is an upland ecologist based at Wild Haweswater, a joint initiative between RSPB and United Utilities. Here she is working on the Mardale Common grazing experiment, a long-term upland experiment investigating the impacts of a range of grazing and tree planting regimes on tree regeneration and survival and the subsequent impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Ashley is also working on the 33,000 ha Cumbrian Landscapes Partnership project which aims to restore natural ecological processes by creating, restoring and reconnecting woodland, scrub, grassland, peatland and wetland habitats. Ashley leads a team who monitors the impacts of these restoration activities on everything from spider eating habits, to deer browsing on trees, to stream flow rate and all manner of wonderful things between.
Melissa Minter is a Conservation Scientist working on the new Treescapes STAND (Scenarios of Treescape Expansion for People and Nature) project where she will be modelling future treescape expansion across the UK and in two upland priority landscapes to understand the outcomes on greenhouse gas emissions, nature, food & timber.
This modelling will be used to collaborate with stakeholders in each of the upland landscapes, to understand how future treescapes can be designed for the best outcomes for people and nature.
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