The islands are also the first in Orkney to implement their own specific island biosecurity plan in a collaboration between project and island community to protect the area from the invasive non-native stoats.
The team of three dog handlers with their two spaniels, Thorn and Scout, and black Labrador, Spud, have been searching for signs of stoats across all terrain, high and low. Their efforts focused on the most likely areas for a stoat to live, such as moorland and coast. No signs of stoat were found from these sweeps of the targeted areas.
Chris Bell, ONWP Biosecurity Officer, said: “This is truly fabulous news, and we are very proud to have accomplished it. We certainly couldn’t have achieved this mammoth task without the incredible support of everyone on Hoy, Walls and Graemsay. We are so grateful for the warm welcome we received and valuable community co-operation.”
This is also great news for the rich native wildlife on the islands, which would be hit hard should stoats arrive from Mainland. The project is continuing with every effort to ensure that stoats don’t have the opportunity to establish on any of the high-risk islands with ongoing regular dog surveys.
Crucial to the long-term strategy to help protect islands from a stoat arriving is establishing plans with the individual island communities. These biosecurity plans set out what checks and strategies will be in place to help keep their islands stoat-free. The Graemsay, Hoy and Walls Community Council were the first of ONWP’s island partners to approve their specific biosecurity plan, and which is now fully operational.
Grace Robertson of Littlewards Farm, Hoy and member of Graemsay Hoy & Walls Community Council said: “We were looking to the future at the Hoy community council. The threat of stoats reaching Hoy had given us a wakeup call and as a farmer I know we must work on both sides of the fence to ensure our island is protected. Working with the project gives us a sense of security and we know we can approach them and have the reassurance that what we are doing together works. All the people concerned are very proactive, constructive and on the ball. They are very dedicated and do the job in a professional manner chipping away in the background. They deserve a round of applause!”
The checks by Europe’s first stoat detection conservation dogs confirm the absence of stoats that the project’s other monitoring methods (monitoring tunnels, coastal trapping network and trail cameras) have also shown. Crucial to the stoat monitoring effort is also any public reports from the high-risk islands within stoat swimming distance of Mainland.
Chris Bell added: “We value any reports from folk who think they have seen a stoat. It can be difficult to identify any animal when moving fast, seen from a distance, or disappearing into bushes, but we believe it is better to be safe than be sorry. If anyone on the islands think they have seen a stoat then please let us know immediately.”
Visit the website www.orkneynativewildlife.org for more information on our biosecurity work, how to identify a stoat and to report a sighting.
ENDS
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
For media enquiries please contact: 07548 156298 or media@onwp.org
Images are available on request.
About Orkney biosecurity
- Biosecurity is the description for the methods that help prevent the spread of invasive non-native species - in Orkney’s case this is the stoat.
- Invasive non-native migrations are usually a human-made problem, so it is critical that plans are put in place to stop stoats spreading across Orkney now, as well as preventing their return in the future once they have all been removed.
- Stoats have been known to swim up to three kilometres, so a shoreline network of traps exist to catch any potential stoat reaching the neighbouring isles as an early warning system of stoats spreading.
- We collaborate with each island community to create biosecurity plans specific to their needs which set out the actions to help prevent stoats spreading to their stoat-free isles.
About the Orkney Native Wildlife Project
- More information available on the website, www.orkneynativewildlife.org.uk, Facebook page www.facebook.com/OrkneyNativeWildlifeProject
- The ONWP is the world’s largest stoat eradication project in a populated place.
- The Orkney Native Wildlife Project is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and Orkney Islands Council, with the aim to protect Orkney’s native wildlife by removing stoats, an invasive non-native predator first recorded in Orkney in 2010.
- It has the generous support of the National Lottery through the National Lottery Heritage Fund and EU Life as well as financial and in-kind contributions from partners.
Stoats in Orkney
- Stoats are native to the UK Mainland but not to Orkney. They were first recorded in Orkney in 2010. In 2014, Scottish Natural Heritage commissioned a report: Stoat on the Orkney Islands – assessing the risks stoats posed to native species (SNH Commissioned Report No. 871).
- Stoats are very skilled hunters. They are fast and agile and good climbers with very good eyesight, hearing and sense of smell. They typically feed on small mammals, birds and eggs but can kill prey much larger than themselves. They also tend to kill more than they need and hide (cache) the rest to eat later. With no natural predators in Orkney, they pose a very serious threat to Orkney's native wildlife.
- Stoats are a particular threat to the Orkney vole, hen harrier, short-eared owl and other ground-nesting birds such as red-throated divers, Arctic terns and curlews for which Orkney is internationally important and upon which Orkney’s thriving wildlife tourism industry relies.
- The introduction of stoats elsewhere in the world has had a devastating impact on island wildlife. For example, in New Zealand they are implicated in the extinction of the bush wren, laughing owl and native thrush.