Hello, welcome back, everybody. So pleased, Anna, to have you on here. It was really interesting, everyone.

I, I went to visit Anna, who is the executive dean at one of our new schools, Harper Keel. And we got chatting, we were talking about a, a number of different issues also around webinar vets. And then of course I heard that Anna was doing this amazing work releasing er Golden Eagles to Southern Scotland.

I know it's been a very much a team collaboration, Anna, but er fantastic work that you are doing. I'll leave you to introduce yourself more fully, cos er I think this story is so fascinating. I don't think people want to hear me being a gas spike, so I'm gonna pass over to you, Anna.

Thanks so much, can you, can you hear me OK? Because we were having a bit of problems with the sound for. Yeah, let's see how we do.

If I need to jump in, I can do, but yeah, let's crack on. So, so if you want to turn my video off, that that's absolutely fine if I start breaking up. I do apologise in advance.

So, well, firstly, thank you so much, Anthony, for, for inviting me. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and and a real honour obviously on behalf of of Simon. I didn't know Simon very well personally, but obviously I admired him from afar for many years.

And it's fantastic already. I've been so inspired by the conversation so far. I'm, I'm, a wildlife vet through and through my whole career has been devoted to, to wildlife and conservation medicine.

So, so it's great to talk to you about this one particular project, restoring, golden eagles to Southern Scotland. And as Anthony. Mentions, it really is a good example of how vets can play an important role, but also I really want to emphasise that, I only played a very small role in this massive project which I'm really, privileged to talk to you about, and I'm very grateful to, to Doctor Kat Barlow, who's the project manager who's who's led me a lot of these slides and really I'm just giving this talk on behalf of.

Of cats and the amazing team that's been so successful in in in this project, but also it's been really good fun to be part of, part of it as a vet. I was, I, I sit on the scientific advisory panel for this project and I've also had the absolute pleasure of, of going out and doing some of the field work which we'll talk I'll talk to you about. So, I can't just, I've only got half an hour, so I'll, I'll rattle through this and, at the end, we have got a video of just, just the, sort of final point of release, which I hope will work.

It was embedded in the presentation, but I've taken it out because I'm having some technical problems today. But . I just wanted to emphasise this is a huge project.

It's been funded. It started in 2017, funded mainly by the Heritage Lottery Fund. But as you can see from all the logos there, a huge joint and collaborative project and still is, and this really details the work that I did before.

I came to the executive team at the faculty of Natural Sciences at Keele University last year and worked for for nearly 30 years at the Edinburgh running the exotic and wild animal service there and that's where I did most of my conservation work, but I'm still very much involved with this project. And, and many others as well, but as you can see, it's a real partnership and these, this is how these projects are successful by collaborative interdisciplinary, teamwork, team science and also engagement with the community. So just a bit of background, golden eagles, an iconic species, I can see from the maps here going back, firstly, A is 5, 500, 1800, and B, and by 1920 at the bottom there you can see those, those dark grey circles, that's the the golden eagles.

They really are due to persecution, the population has has retreated back to . Scotland only and the north of Scotland and the islands particularly. You can also see from from the from the first graph the top left there that that we also used to have a very healthy population of white-tailed sea eagles across the UK and again they, they have largely disappeared or that's another success story that I could also talk about because I've also been involved with the whitetail Seagle reintroduction project, which is also been pretty successful.

But we're talking about golden eagles today, so I'll focus on that. So that's historic background. The, the main reason for the legal decline in the UK is persecution, unfortunately.

So as Anthony says it's it's human activities. They did receive legal protection in the 1950s which improved the situation somewhat and and and halted the decline going even further, and we're in a situation in in 2017, well, a bit before that this was about 2008. We, we have these figures where we've got about 540 pairs or so again in the north of Scotland and the islands and we know this as a result of many, surveys.

There's lots of, very dedicated people in Scotland, rapture study groups and, and, other organisations carrying out regular surveys on our bird populations, including the eagles. And, and, and that at that time, it was about 2008, so the Scottish land and estates and the RSPB came together, really triggered by finding eagles poisoned and so recognising that persecution was still a real problem in Scotland, and really trying to get to grips with the situation and find out what we could do to help restore the population. And those two organisations commissioned a report in 2014 by He and Fielding, to look at the factors involved in in the golden League of decline, and look at what what factors might be involved in, in, restoring them and basically.

This was the basis for coming up with this idea that a conservation translocation was, was the best idea for restoring the population in South Scotland. I say it's very easy to say that in, in, in a few words, a lot of effort went into this and obviously great amount of. Government and other stakeholder involvement in terms of getting everything in place and it was 2017 when we finally got the delivery phase funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and basically the idea was to take birds from the north of Scotland and use them to to translocate and to reinforce this very, very small population in the south of Scotland.

Is satellite tagging data which really shows, looking at those birds, the very, very clearly the distinct, division between these two populations. So you've got the population in the north there and then a big gap, and then the population, and this very small population, only about 3 pairs in the south. And no movement between them, but if you look very closely, there is one line going in between, but that was a bird from the south going north.

There was no recruitment, population coming north coming south. So as well as numbers that obviously has genetic pool consequences as well. And this is the report, as I mentioned that really looked at the feasibility that that was behind this project, modelling things like the suitable habitat, and analysing that and looking at all sorts of factors that we needed to take into consideration in this project.

So existing numbers in the south of Scotland, where the food sources were, where there was good habitat, suitable habitat for for eagles, and also. Also looked at the the the changes in land use and the reasons for decline over the last 100 years or so I mentioned that was mainly persecution, but obviously also changes in land use and the decline of suitable habitat for eagles and also took into account as you see the green dots there, the multitude of place names in Southern Scotland that are associated with eagles, indicating that they're really strong historical link. With, with the South of Scotland and their important role in, in, in, in the culture there, and indicating really how important they were in southern Scotland and, and that just the great shame that they had declined so much and only only 3 pairs left.

And most studies led to the analysis that air transportation was was was feasible and that the area could support about 16 pairs. So there was a real good evidence, good scientific evidence that we could, there was a there was a good chance of success in establishing new, new territories and pairs of eagles in the south of Scotland. So how does it all work now I can talk phrases about this, but I'll try and condense it down to the process.

Essentially the the premise of the translocations is that we take. One chick from a nest of twins, we select a healthy chick and we translocate it, in a cage in the back of the van down to the south of Scotland where they put into purpose built apiaries in very secret locations, rears to fledging stage, and, and then released into the miles without any, that with minimum human interference and without any imprinting. So effectively nests are obviously monitored by by lots of lots of people.

There's lots of people involved with this. We need to know where the nests are, whether they've got twins or not, and then we visit the nests at the appropriate time, aiming to to capture the chicks when they're between 5 and 8 weeks old. This is all done under very strict licencing conditions.

And just to say that, although it is quite usual for golden eagles to have, twins, naturally in the wild, usually only about 10% of twins get to the pudging stage. Usually it's a natural process, one chick. Kills the other, so it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not a problem to take one chick from the nest and in fact, it, it actually increases the chance of success of that of that chick that we, we actually take because the, the, the risk of of death is, is quite high anyway.

So as I said, at 55 weeks they can thermoregulate, they can share food themselves, so we don't need to do things like hand feed them and minimise, human, contact. If we leave any later than about 8 weeks they're at the point of of fledging and there is a risk that we visit nest. They, they might jump off or injure themselves or fly away.

So it's a strict, very strict time window, that we've got to do this and obviously we're involved teams going in with the teams of experts. Including people who can, climb trees, sometimes they nest on crags like this. They will nest also in, in trees.

So in that case we need to either climb a cliff, a cliff, or, or, or climb a tree. I that because I'm right at the bottom, to receive the birds, as do my other colleagues who go out and do the vet work, and give them their health checks. So, both checks, both chicks are checked for health, so we only would take a healthy check.

And, they're both examined and we select which chick is, most suitable for translocation. You can see this is one on Conti and that we actually have to put a hood on. It was a bit more feisty, generally we don't have to put them, but it just keeps them, helps keep them calm, .

And this is obviously a bit of an old bird as well, more likely to, to, to, to fledge. It's more closer to fledging, but we take that chick, a healthy chick, and take samples from it, and, and then as quickly as possible minimal stress, it's put in a specially constructed box in the back of our a ute, and driven by the team as quickly as possible but down to the south of Scotland where purpose built a theory. Have been constructed as I said, they're in secret locations, and those locations are based on, several factors of suitable habitat because they are released from those aviaries.

We need to be in quiet, unbed locations and obviously we've got to have certain amount of logistics for the team who, who look after this, look after the birds during the time that they're in the cages in the aviaries and, getting ready to, to be released. So it's a very exercise, incredible expertise from Kat Barlow who leads the team, and John Wright and who, who is very much involved with, with this, this end of the process. When they get to the aviaries, we pair up these individual chicks back into pairs with an unrelated bird, and actually they, they, they pair up and bond very quickly, unless there's an odd number obviously when one has to be on their own, so we'll have pairs of chicks, and they're in the aviaries for for usually between between 4 and 5.

Until they're really ready to fair and strong, usually it's about 12 weeks of age, which might be a little, and we might keep them a little bit later than perhaps they would in the wild just to make sure they're absolutely, fit to buy and fit to look after themselves because they haven't got the advantage of having, parents around, around to guide them. This was one bird that was kept on its own, a particularly feisty female. She just didn't like the the other chick that she'd been paired up with, but you can see that gives you an idea of the aviary.

There, there, there's no visual contact with humans. So John, who looks after the aviaries, he feeds them through the flat back there, everything's done remotely. This sick picture is taken through a peep hole, and even when they're.

It's done from a distance remotely, and the only person is, is literally about 500 metres away, so, so effectively they, they hardly ever see people. We don't want them to, become perpetuated to humans. They are, they are, they retain their, their absolute their wild characteristics and instincts.

You can do that on quail, that you can get pork and moist and gives them moisture, and then they move on to more natural prey items such as grey squirrel, rabbit hairs, etc. Obviously, collected, to make sure that it's lead free. The ovaries are quite large.

They have perches so they can exercise their feet and learn to perch and also plenty of room to to flap them out and exercise their wings and build up those muscles so that they can, fly when they when the the doors are opened and they are released. This is just the still of the video that hopefully we'll be able to show you at the end just to show you that these are the birds are ready to, ready to go. The door will be opened remotely.

This is filmed, with the zoom lens from about 500 metres away, and the door is opened just very slowly and quietly. And the birds just take their time to go. There's no fanfare.

There's no reports of photographers or people around watching, which I've seen with some, some releases elsewhere. It's just done very quietly and the birds take their own time. So I hope you enjoy looking at that video, at the end.

They, they usually stay in the release sites in the valley there usually have these aviaries in the valley, and they'll stay around usually for about 4 to 8 weeks as they learn to fly well and build up their muscles, learn to learn to, to, hone their hunting instincts, and we at that point we provide supplementary feeding, on platforms so to make sure that they have a food supply. And it's amazing to see how they are absolutely happy because even parents the instinct to hunt, fly, you know, hunt down prey, and they will in their own time, gradually leave the area coming back as as they need to to get supplementary. Feeding which will continue throughout the winter if needed, but they very rapidly learn to to to explore and and head out into the wild, and they'll sort of move around for the 1st 2 to 3 years and then start to be establishing territories, etc.

So I'll show you some satellite tag. And just to say that, because we're limited on time today, there's a wonderful little video that, a colleague has made, filming, an eclip from collection to release. So if any of you are interested in watching further, you can either scan this QR code now and get it directly to that video or just go on to the Golden Eagle South of Scotland website.

So the important thing about this projects, you could see the team here and on the left there is Neil Anderson back from that from that along with John and Kat and along with the basket on his back, which is what we used to transport chick back to the van, and in the yellow trans there is Gabrielen who was a PhD. Students of mine who did our whole PhD on golden eagles, it's very much a team effort and it was very much a part of the plan and part of us getting a licence that we have vets on every team and every event in person, and health checks and making sure we collected health data, was part of the project right from the, right from the very beginning. This is just showing the the after release to show the platforms there so the eagles can come back and make make sure they're well fed as they get to learn their way around and explore the territory.

They're raised to stop other predators, foxes and badgers and things interfering with the food, and they're fed on things like crows and other items to carry and up to up to deer carcasses just mimicking the natural food they would be feeding on wild. And obviously unreleased all the birds satellite tags, so, huge part of projects is actually monitoring the birds, and this is ongoing part of the project, and birds that have been released, they're constantly monitored very intensive efforts into that. And just to show this is just one example, and you can see they, they do wander over the whole of the south of Scotland, in this initial phase, the first few years before they start to, establish territories.

And so far the good news is that all these juvenile birds, all the translocated chicks have stayed in the south of Scotland. None have gone home to the north where they originally came from. The second part of the project, which started a bit later on in 2022, it was in a year that we, we haven't we managed to get so many chicks to boost the population in the previous collection season season.

So we. We sort of licence, I say we, this is the project team to try a new technique of actually translocating sub subadults that these were fully fed birds, but they haven't reached full maturity yet and haven't established a nesting territory. And they were selective birds from the outer Hebrides where there's a really healthy population that are free flying obviously wild living birds and hunting for themselves and completely independent from the parents and varying from an age from very close to fledging, so from about 4 months old up to about 3 years old.

This was really a groundbreaking stuff for eagles. The only time this had been done before was in the US, but that was a slightly different scenario when they were removing eagles in their entirety from an from an island population. So it's never been done before in this, in this situation.

And this again, it, it, it takes real expertise, what, what, the way you catch an eagle, you might wonder how you catch an eagle. We put a carcass out, and this is all done by experts in the film, our colleague, Dave Anderson. We put a, put a a carcass out in the in the field there, and then, you load the bow trap very close to that carcass and basically sit and wait and watch and then when an eagle does come down to feed on the carcass, there's a remote trigger to the bow trap.

It fires the bow trap over the bird, . So it can't fly off and then, and then Dave and his colleagues run in and catch the birds so there's just a picture there of that process. So, so very expert handlers, grabbing the bird, casting it, making sure it doesn't damage itself, and, and that's your bird in the hand, it looks easy but obviously it takes incredible skill and expertise.

So apart from the catching method, which is obviously a bit more challenging, after that, the the process is is very similar to the chicks, we have vets on site again. This is John and Kat that the project leads. The birds will have a health check.

And then, they moved, down immediately, in a cage again to, to the south of Scotland, actually the things have evolved, initially they were put in a very small sort of temporary area here, very small sort of it was just a, an a cage here just to make sure as a backup that they were OK if they've had the health check, etc. Or if we, mishandled them and they, you know, lost grip of sort of grip of. Whilst we wanted to to to do the vet checks, etc.

Actually, very quickly we learned that that wasn't necessary and the best thing to do was to actually release them almost straight away. So they literally moved down, maybe an 8 or 12 hour journey, given a health check, and then released. This was a very big female bird we actually called this one big bird and it said that gold for females come up to about 5 kg.

This one was was about 7 kg. So again, health checks. Here's my colleague recommend doing health checks in a simple snowy snowy conditions in Scotland, taking sports, taking samples, making sure that they're, free of, pathogens like avian influenza, obviously that's been very topical recently, they're run and satellite tag is fitted and, and again they're released, so that's the word, run satellite tag on and and.

And that was a new trial will they say will they go? Well, it's been a mixed result, but overall pretty successful. So far 15 sub-adults, have been caught, in the Outer Hebrides and one from Argyle, and after release there, this is just from one particular bird you can see it.

Has gone back to the north again, but they haven't settled yet and some of them are coming back. They have moved north whether they stay there remains to be seen. 7 have stayed in Scotland.

We do know that one has returned to the Isle of Lewis and looks like it's staying there and one's the Isle of Skye. But the good news is that in the South, 4 of them have now actually settled on territory, so they, they will remain there hopefully and very pair up and have breeding attempts. So that's been the elements of the key elements of the project.

Obviously, you know, it's really important that we ensure a positive future for these magnificent birds, and this combination of the juvenile and size of conservation translocations, has done an enormous amount, obviously just restoring numbers, but also restoring the genetics of the population, that isolated population in the south, and overcoming that real hurdle, this lack of recruitment into that population. However, as important as the actual physical. Of the birds is minimising the reasons for historical decline and getting stakeholder engagements in education.

So I just like to spend 5 minutes or so just talking about the importance of that because unless you get that bit right, the these projects aren't going to have long term success, in, in maintaining these populations. So that's been as important as the physical aspects of moving birds and all that really scientific aspects of the stakeholder engagement. I cannot emphasise this as being important enough.

It has been the success of this project has been that it is a genuine partnership and key to that is being getting land management, and, . Landowners and gamekeepers and all people invest with invested interest in, in, in the golden eagle habitat and the land management on board, listening to their concerns, being really open and honest about failures and challenges and what projects doing and where the birds are, there are no secrets. I'm, I'm really working very hard with the community over many, many years, and this has been going now for 67 years, and working with those communities to highlight the benefits, of, to to communities and stakeholders, and that's where the successes lie.

That's why we have a dedicated member of staff on the team who's a retired gamekeeper, so he's got that sort of buying the local community and it's all about building trust, genuine partnerships, and also with the workers and the RSPB, etc. Everybody on board, and, and not being secretive about it, as I said. We were criticised as a project for doing that, and everyone said, well, if people know where the birds are that you're open to persecution.

Well, luckily that hasn't been the case, and actually now we're in a situation where land managers really want to be part of the project and have great pride in having eagles on their territory. This is Brian, the the retired gamekeeper who basically is employed full time to to engage with stakeholders going around sitting down having a cup of tea and actually talking to people in language they can understand. On shooting states, you know, with forestry workers, farmers, and getting that respect and trust with them across the whole industry.

And that's been the key to success. And then of course the community engagement again dedicated staff doing that Brian included, we have cafes set up in in near one of the release sites where we can people over a cup of coffee can learn more about golden eagles and amazing a number of school visits, getting young people involved, getting them excited about eagles, getting that thrill of seeing eagles in the in the habitats. They can see the numbers of how many people participated that.

The other big success has been Moffit, which is a key town in the south of Scotland, very part of the territory where these eagles have been released, and there's now the M Golden Eagle Festival, which has been an incredible success again, the whole community getting involved. It's become a real landmark event now. We have golden eagle statues in the town, the, the whole place is booked out with Airbnb and all the.

Tells are full. We've had, BBC One show. They came in the film last year that's going to be aired, I think in February and lots of celebrities like Gordon Buchanan and Williams and fancy, you know, coming along and getting that publicity, and it's amazing the benefit and the added benefit of just having these pairs of eagles there and in the environment, attracting tourism and really benefiting everybody the benefits of having eagles as part of the landscape.

So in terms of success, just briefly for the vets if you will have a bit more veterinary, information. The overall survival rate of the chicks has been 83% and so far 100% in the sub-adults, which is pretty amazing for a project like this. Obviously, you know, wild species, natural mortality is expected to run through some, some of the reasons for those, losses.

A very unusual situation in 2019 when one of the bird that was released, Eki, one of those chicks that was translocated actually attacked three of the other chicks in, in, in subsequent years. We recovered one of those chicks dead, one was never recovered, was presumed dead, and one was actually rescued by John. This is speaking mountaining over in the if you can't see it.

Bracken there is is a is a younger chick that she was being aggressive towards John went in and rescued it and took it back to the aviary and it was absolutely fine. And actually the great end of the story is that Bey, this female actually has now paired up with this particular male bird, and they've built, they've been paired up for 3 years now and they've built two nests so far haven't managed to raise any eggs yet, but, a nice end to that story. The other less, less, .

You know, favourable result was actually a bird, that we're pretty sure was persecuted. We didn't find the carcass, but there was strong evidence, that the, the birds, the tags suddenly stopped working, and there was evidence that that bird had, likely been, likely been killed, you know, illegally. So, so that was very disappointing unfortunately, no prosecution, was made because of just where we got the police involved, there was insufficient.

Another one here, this was, thought, well, we know that this was an attack by another eagle, so nothing suspicious here. It's just part of the natural cycle of things. It is, it is normal for for eagles to attack each other, particularly in an established territory if another bird comes in.

So, that was confirmed by postmortem didn't recover that body. They were puncture wounds, otherwise it was a good body condition, and it fled shortly before death. So that is it, it flew close to an active nest with chicks fledging on it, so it's natural territorial behaviour, .

So that was another one, And this one unfortunately, it was a wind turbine strike, and I think this just emphasises the. The need to, you know, consider the, the environment, get people on board, and now we are, in cats certainly is, is helping to inform land management where, when new wind turbines should be situated, etc. To take into consideration the habit of, habitat and where, where the golden eagle eagles are because, you know, it's south of Scotland is quite a small area we've got to, we've got to try and, you know, accommodate everybody's needs to do it in the most eagle friendly way.

And the last time is an unexplained death, that we suspect probably was, an electrocution. Again, the carcass found in good condition, no, no signs of disease, or, or persecution, they lead shot, likely, electrocution. So it has been a tremendous success.

We now I'm very pleased to say, over the course of the project, we now have a healthy population of around 50 golden eagles in Southern Scotland. So going from, you know, 3 pairs in 2017 to around 50, which is probably about their, their maximum capacity now, but the project is continuing to monitor monitor those. But as you can see there, 12 new occupied territories, which is absolutely fantastic.

It's been an outstanding success beyond, beyond the wildest hopes really at the beginning of the project. The other thing I should mention that, just in case you're wondering, 2 were 2 chicks were rejected at health check, so one had, signs of respiratory disease, so that wasn't, translocated, and one had evidence of, calluses and scars on its wings and wasn't, deemed to, to be a good, a good one for, for releasing the health checks valuable. And another just a word about the veterinary involvement.

Obviously, you know, we take a lot of data at these these events and working with the sea eagles and it's really important that we do the science as well as the the exciting bits of just being involved and taking samples and health checking them and, and all these projects, there's a lot of scientific input. I just, you can see the . The publications that have arisen out of this work, both with the golden eagles and with similar projects on the white tail sea sea eagles.

It's really important. A lot of the times we just don't have baseline data. Next steps, obviously, we're continuing to support these stakeholders because if we stop now, the, the risk is, is that, is that, that buy in and acceptance and engagement, will, will lapse and we'll go back to a situation of, of, of likely persecution.

So it's really important. And it's really exciting the next steps for this project. Nature based tourism showing how it can be an economic benefit, having eagles in the area and also very excitingly, we're starting now to talk with natural England forestry England because the birds are starting to explore into the south, and they don't know where the border between Scotland and England lies.

You can see here, one of these sub adults is is . Moving quite down far down, this one's gone as far as Yorkshire. We've had them going into Northumberland, you know, following the Pennines down, you know, showing those further movements.

So how can we support, the natural repopulation further into England, which is really exciting. So I'll leave it there. Hopefully that's given you a flavour.

As I said, hopefully we can, watch a video if there is time. I'd really like to acknowledge again the fact that I was a very small part of a very big project. So thanks to the, saving Scotland's, team, Scotland's Golden Eagles team, to Laurie John for all these wonderful pictures, Dave Anderson and Robin Reed for helping us catch the Eagles and obviously to my fellow vets, Neil and, Gadonna and Gabriella.

And, just a, a final word, restoring up the nature is now the name and the unfortunately, the heritage lottery funding has run out, so we've established our own new char charity, which I'm a trustee, to carry on this good work. So if you are interested in learning more, please, please give our website a listen. So sorry I ran over a bit, Anthony, but I, I hope, I gave you a favour and I'm really happy to.

No, that was, that was really excellent, Anna, and lovely to see. You know, in rebirding, they were talking a lot about the, the grouse shoots, etc. You know, being a real issue, so nice to see that the con the game birds, er people were involved in that project, and as you say, the important part of education with the gamekeepers to actually encourage them to see this as a.

You know, it's a real opportunity for tourism, which then brings a lot of money into the into the economy, but please start the video Rebecca, so that people can watch that as we're chatting. Yeah, thanks, Antony. This, this video is quite slow, but it's about 2 minutes, but it just shows that lovely point where remotely we're opening.

The door here, I said this is filmed from a good 0.5 kilometre away, so they're very calm, very, relaxed birds, the door just opens and they can as long as they like, you can see they've got satellite tags on the back there. There's a pair of birds in here.

They're nice and fit and healthy. They've been exercising their wings, and you'll see them just, just plop out. I think 11 jumps down onto the ground and one actually flies off.

So I'm very happy to chat anymore we're watching that. Yeah. Yeah, sure.

I mean. I think obviously we've got people on the call now. Obviously people will be watching this as recordings.

Part of sustainability is if, if you're not doing as much as you'd like to do, then donating to people like the Ripple effect and obviously to run as well is a great way of supporting this important work and. You know, it's so important that we look at the golden eagle and we say it's a, it's a landmark species that we want to keep, but as you say, it's looking also at the environment, cos if we don't get the environment right, it, it can be a bit of a vanity project, can't it? Completely, yes, and I think I hopefully I.

You know, I, I illustrated that this is a huge effort that the actual moving the birds is is is one part of it, but you've got to get everything right. And I cannot overemphasise just, you know, 5 people working full time over 5 years, 6 years and I'm still working on that. The time and effort and investment that's needed to to to to to engage with the community and land land managers, etc.

You know, it's it's just so important and you can never stop doing that. I think that's the other important thing that you can see one's gone. Yes, it's wonderful to watch, isn't it?

It's such a thrill. So, so yes, and I, and I think what's what's been just so humbling for me is just seeing, seeing the dedication of the people involved, but also, just that that growing sense of community and pride, and the excitement and the importance also of the younger generation, getting them excited, you know. Projects in schools name the eagles, you know, I think Bey was one of, you know, name named by by by school kids, etc.

And, and yeah, the, the very real economic benefits of having eagles as a destination, you know, for tourism for Hospitality, etc. You know, it's it's win-win really if you get it right, but it takes an awful lot of effort to get it right. But I hope that's given people some optimism.

You were talking about us earlier and and hope that this is one of several projects, you know, you talked about the beavers. Be involved in that one as well. So, so there is hope, and I think vets have a really important role to play, either directly, or as you say, by by by working with others.

Yeah, and this is really part of the summit today was to say there is a lot of really cool stuff going on, which is being veterinary led. So whilst we're all a bit impatient, whilst we want more to be done and we can certainly move quicker, you know, the work that you're doing, Anna, we've also got Andy Torrens, this is a recording coming up next, cos Andy's away. But again, you know, at the Veterinary Greens discussion forum in London, I met with Andy for the first time.

He's obviously well known to to people a a a very well respected clinical pathologist in the UK works for Veterinary pathology group, he sold his company to Veterinary pathology Group, . And I got chatting to him, never met him before and he very kindly invited me down to his home in, in Devon, and I got to see this wonderful rewilding site that he's been working on for 20 years. It's a really rare piece of .

Of environment, we don't see much of it. It's down in Devon. I think the Devon Wildlife Trust are fascinated by it, and he's seeing that possibilities also that we can make a bit of money out of this with the, the, biodiversity net gain, if we can.

Make it er financially sensible for people to do things. We will get biodiversity back if we, if we, actually encourage people to turn our countryside into a green monoculture because the money's in that, then of course that's the way it will go. So it's been satisfying to see governments and people like Natural England, looking in a much more holistic way now, Anna, and I'm sure you're seeing some of the benefits of that as well in in the just the change of thinking which, We have to do in the UK where, you know, some of the most biodiverse poor countries in, in the whole of Europe, in fact, in the whole of the world.

Completely agree. And as I said, you know, I'm I'm asked to talk about. Conservation and and restoring biodiversity quite a lot and and and people often expect you to talk about projects elsewhere in the world.

But all the work I do is in the UK. There's so much to do as I say, you know, there's, you know, in our own backyard, we need, we need to do that. And it's great to see, you know, the number of projects.

This is just one example of. A huge number of projects to to restore, restore biodiversity. You mentioned the neck state and the fantastic work being done there and lots of other rewilding, projects.

The other one I'm involved in is the Scottish Wildcats. And again, that's a great example of success. But again, it takes a huge amount of effort and multi stakeholder.

Input to to, you know, release, release wildcats into the wild, but but but it can be done, you know, there there is there's huge optimism here for the future if everybody works together and understands the complexity of the and and the inter reliance of everybody and and the fact that you have to manage. You know, forever, and it is management, you know, we are restoring, you know, 500 years ago, everybody's got to live in live together and we've got to, you know, we've got to grow food, we've got to grow trees, we've got to, you know, we've got to have biodiversity as well and it's how we can do that in the best possible way together. But give nature a chance and it can rebound and you know it's so important to to have vets within that because I think we had, So much value and it's what I'm trying to encourage, you know, with the event, people out there, you know, do think big, you know, think for your own practise, but also how can you.

Make a difference nationally and internationally with some of the things that we can do, we're very fortunate in the sense that we live in a very rich country. We have an obligation to, yes, do the national stuff cos we, we need to do better than we are doing, but also have that international perspective as well. Indeed, indeed, yeah, I'm sorry, I can't turn my own video on here.

Yeah, no, don't worry Anna, listen, it's been great having you on. I know how busy you are. I love the fact that we got to chat just before Christmas, and of course all of this kind of came up in that conversation, which is why it's so important also to to meet up and and maybe we should do a a podcast on the on the cats.

That would be great, yeah, and I will, I am staying on. I will stay on to the round table later, so very happy to take any questions later, so.