Welcome to the tenth weekly stoat snippet!
These snippets will be a short update on progress with both the Orkney Native Wildlife Project and the Orkney Mainland Predator Invasion Biosecurity Project, as well as addressing any concerns that folk have raised with SNH and RSPB Scotland.
Orkney Native Wildlife Project
We have launched a community consultation today to encourage folk to get involved and help shape the development of the project.
We want to gather the thoughts and ideas of Orkney’s residents, as well as visitors, to get your views on a range of proposed opportunities for folk to engage with the project, including wildlife surveys, workshops, family events, evening talks and cultural events. We also hope the consultation will encourage Orcadians to find out more about the project and why Orkney’s incredible native wildlife needs protecting.
During the consultation Amy and the project team will be travelling around the islands talking to local community groups and holding a range of public events (dates and venues coming soon). Community groups that would like to receive a talk from the Orkney Native Wildlife Project team, or find out more about the project, should get in touch with Amy King on 01856 886 161 or amy.king@snh.gov.uk.
The consultation runs until February 2018 and the questionnaire is available online too at www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/C8662JK as well as at various locations across Orkney.
In other news, the traps we have ordered for the trapping trial have started to arrive and a local joiner is busy making the housing for traps. If all goes well with the order for traps, we should be ready to start the trapping trials very soon.
Orkney Mainland Predator Invasion Biosecurity Project
The traps are still out in five areas around the Orkney Mainland. The next checks will happen in early December.
Potential incursion responses
Rousay: The traps have been re-deployed on Hoy instead of for the trapping trial (see below to find out why). However, we would encourage folk who live or visit Rousay to remain vigilant and get in touch if there is even the slightest suspicion that they have seen a stoat.
Hoy: You’ll remember that following two reported sightings of stoats in October that we have had some traps out on Hoy along with monitoring tubes and cameras to try to confirm whether stoats are present.
Last week when looking at the footage from one of the camera traps we saw what we are fairly certain was a stoat (it was a very grainy image). We have therefore launched a much larger potential incursion response with more traps to try to catch the stoat and also to investigate whether we think there are more stoats on Hoy.
On Tuesday, using the traps that we collected from Rousay, we put an additional 28 traps out, most in the original incursion response area but some in the wider area. We also put three extra cameras out beyond the original area too because we need to know if we are dealing with one individual or a few in a very isolated area or whether there are more and they are more widespread.
It's incredibly important that people stay vigilant and report any possible sightings as soon as possible.
Answering your concerns…
Remember, if you have any comments or concerns please contact north@snh.gov.uk or orkney@rspb.org.uk.
And don't forget to keep reporting any sightings of stoats, whether on the mainland or outer isles, as soon as possible, to SNH by calling 01856 886163, by emailing north@snh.gov.uk or through the ‘Stoats in Orkney’ Facebook page.