Scheme aids rare wildlife - but 'time running out'

THE Government's nature boss has warned “time is running out fast” to halt declines in wildlife, as results from a £13 million scheme show it is possible to help threatened species.

- EMILY BEAMENT

The Species Recovery Programme’s capital grants scheme, which ran from August 2023 to March 2025, saw Government nature agency Natural England invest in targeted conservation efforts to help wildlife such as water voles, oyster-catchers and lady’s slipper orchids.

Natural England said the scheme supported the recovery of more than 150 species, many of which were on the brink of national extinction, through creating habitat, captive breeding and translocating wildlife to help it expand into new areas, and research.

The scheme has scored successes including the first wild-hatched red-billed chough chick fledging in Kent for more than 200 years, the reintroduction of black grouse to the North Yorkshire Moors and the return of the large marsh grasshopper to the Norfolk Broads after 85 years, Natural England said.

Tunnels have been installed under a road in Berkshire to allow adders to cross, disused buildings have been made ideal for bat breeding in Sussex and the first example of lady's slipper orchids naturally propagating in the wild has been recorded in Yorkshire.

The scheme invested in 63 different projects from the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall to Cumbria and Northumberland, working with 78 organisations to create or enhance 2,400 hectares (5,900 acres) of wildlife-rich habitat.