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Orkney’s war against the stoats | The week
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Orkney’s war against the stoats | The week

Conservationists celebrate success of large-scale stoat removal project Orkney. These non-native mammals have wreaked havoc on native birds and voles since arriving on the Scottish islands 15 years ago. Since 2019, almost 6,500 stoats have been culled, in what Anne McCall, director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in Scotland, described in a recent report as “the largest project of its kind never tried.”

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project (ONWP), led by the RSPB, works to protect populations of ground-nesting hen harriers and the Orkney vole, a species listed as vulnerable in Scotland. The report calls 2023 a “big year” for the native vole, also noting tangible impacts on several other species. In August the project received a further £4million to help complete the stoat removal work, but leaders are still seeking further funding to ensure Orkney is ‘stoat free by 2030”.