On 10th November, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) celebrates its 70th anniversary. In seven decades, the organisation has grown to be one of the world’s largest and most respected wetland conservation institutions. The original body, the Severn Wildfowl Trust, was founded by Sir Peter Scott in 1946 for the scientific study and conservation of wildfowl. The Trust housed a collection of ducks, geese, swans and waders set in acres of wetland habitat, but what marked it out as something new was the focus on conservation, with its four ‘pillars’ of scientific research, conservation action, education and recreation. These core elements are still central to the organisation today.
Within its first year the Trust had over 1,000 members, with members of the public flocking to the Gloucestershire site to walk amongst the birds. At the time, most zoos and reserves were areas where people watched animals behind bars, so the novelty of being surrounded by wildfowl and being able to feed them was a major draw.The birds were the obvious attraction but Sir Peter recognised that the wetland habitat in which they live was just as important. From the start, preserving and protecting these areas has been a key objective, and in 1989 the organisation’s name was changed to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, reflecting the emphasis on this aspect of conservation. The work of managing wetland habitat continues today, with ground staff at all 10 WWT centres devoting their time to keeping the local environment in top condition, for wildlife, habitat and water resources.It’s not just birds that benefit from such care: water voles and otters, grass snakes, dragonflies and butterflies, flowers and trees are all part of the rich biodiversity which is a feature of each WWT center. Further afield, the Trust’s regular expeditions, and its role in lobbying for protection of species and habitat, has given it a global reputation. Such work involves partnership with fellow scientists around the world, and today’s expeditions are truly international – the current Flight of the Swans project, for example, involves WWT conservationist Sacha Dench flying a paramotor 7,000km alongside Bewick’s swans as they migrate from arctic Russia to the UK. The project, which aims to find out the cause of the species’ decline, involves collaboration with local people and researchers in 11 countries along the flyway. Work to save Critically-Endangered species is ongoing, with projects to save the spoon-billed sandpiper and Madagascar pochard also under way. It is hoped these will build on successful reintroduction programmes featuring the white-winged wood duck in Thailand, and the common crane in Somerset. As the Trust has grown, new centres have opened, and the organisation currently oversees 10 venues throughout the British Isles from Caerlaverock, on the north Solway coast of Scotland, to Castle Espie in Northern Ireland, and Llanelli in Wales. These welcome around a million visitors each year, including 50,000 school children for whom a visit may be their first encounter with the natural world. 1,000 volunteers help to maintain the wetland centres and reserves.The Trust’s work isn’t confined to the UK: WWT’s consulting arm is currently working on the development of a new wetland center in the heart of Dubai, and has previously worked on the renovation of a wetland in Cambodia, providing sustainable fishing for local communities, while acting as advisor on a wetland designed to absorb coastal storm surges in New York. As awareness of the environment has risen, so the Trust is investing in ecologically-sound practices at its sites. The London Wetland Centre, which opened in 2000, for example, features the transformation of four redundant water reservoirs into an urban oasis for wildlife and people. Meanwhile Steart Marshes features a newly-created salt marsh which acts as a carbon store and protects nearby properties from flooding while creating fish nurseries, grazing for cattle, a wetland reserve, and a volunteering and education facility.Looking back on 70 years, Sir Peter Scott’s fledgling organisation has taken wing and flown high. Most visitors think of the Trust as somewhere for a great family day out, and it is! But it’s so much more, having grown from humble beginnings to encompass a UK network of 10 Wetland centres, complemented by conservation and research work worldwide. Looking to the future, WWT’s core elements are as relevant today as they were all those years ago. As the world faces the threat of climate change, the role of wetlands is more important than ever, and WWT’s scientists, researchers, staff and volunteers are committed to working together to make a difference for our natural world.Did you know....· As part of its programme to reintroduce the common crane to Britain, WWT staff had to dress as adult birds to stop the chicks identifying with humans. This involved dressing in gray smocks and using litter pickers shaped like adult crane heads to feed the chicks. They also taught the chicks to forage, swim and run away from dogs, and even ran up and down flapping their arms to teach the chicks to fly.· The first rings attached to birds’ legs to help identify individuals were made of metal and difficult to read: catching the birds was the only way to access the ringing number. That led to the invention of the bright plastic rings in use today which have enabled identification at a distance . . . and without the trauma of having to catch the bird.
· WWT now operates 10 Wetland Centres across the UK. Slimbridge was the pioneer in 1946: it’s since been joined by Caerlaverock, on the north Solway coast of Scotland (1971), Martin Mere and Washington (both 1975), Arundel (1976), Castle Espie in Northern Ireland (1990), Llanelli in South Wales (1991), the London Wetland Centre (2000), Welney (2006), and Steart Marshes in Somerset last year.
· One early feather in WWT’s cap was the rescue from extinction of the rarest goose in the world, the Hawaiian wild goose or nene. Only 32 individuals remained when Sir Peter Scott brought a pair back to Slimbridge in 1950. The nenes bred and thrived in captivity, enabling their offspring to be reintroduced to the wild in 1962. The bird quickly became a public favorite and the species now numbers over 2,000 worldwide.
· There are no ends to which staff will not go to help birds. As part of the ongoing spoon-billed sandpiper project, WWT stood naked on the Russian tundra to attract mosquitos with which to feed the ‘spoony’ chicks. They collected the insects off their own bodies using hand-held car vacuum cleaners, and used hair dryers to keep the chicks warm.
· In the 1940s, WWT founder Peter Scott and fellow ex-servicemen tied old wartime rockets to nets which they fired over flocks of grazing geese to catch and ring them. The system of ‘rocket netting’ is still used to catch geese today.
· Through sketching Bewick’s swans, Peter Scott discovered that each one has a different yellow ‘design’ on its bill, and that can be used to identify individual birds. The ‘bill pattern’ method has been used to study individuals over years, and has proved that swans usually mate for life: only two ‘divorces’ have been recorded in 50 years of observations.
· The Svalbard barnacle goose is the subject of one of the most successful schemes to save an endangered species. Measures to reduce illegal shooting of the goose which overwinters at WWT Caerlaverock have resulted in the world population topping 40,000; numbers had fallen to less than 400 in 1946.
· In its 70 years to date, WWT has worked in over 70 countries with wetland projects ranging ranged from air temperature regulation in Sri Lanka, and sewage break-down in China, to carbon storage in soil around the world.
Sir Peter Scott
The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) was the brainchild of Sir Peter Scott, a Naval officer, Olympic sailor, champion glider pilot and skater, wildfowler and artist.Born in 1909, he was the son of Antarctic explorer Capt Robert Falcon Scott whose dying wish was that he wanted his son to be ‘interested in natural history’. Dramatist J.M. Barrie was one of the boy’s godfathers; he was named after the hero of Barrie’s play Peter Pan. Peter’s early interests included natural history and collecting but, while his family were opposed to blood sports, he spent his 17th birthday stalking and shooting deer, and became an ‘uninhibited hunter’1. He began wildfowling on the Washes while at Cambridge University, combining shooting with bird watching, and with painting the birds he met on out the marshes.Eventually his doubts about the suffering caused by shooting prompted him to sell his guns and focus on learning about and caring for the wildfowl of the marshes: that culminated in the formation of what was to become the WWT. Peter went on to be a driving force in world conservation; Sir David Attenborough famously called him “the patron saint of conservation”. He co-designed the Red Lists which categorise species in terms of threat; he co-founded the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands - the first international protection for a habitat - and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). As well as serving as the WWF’s first chairman, Sir Peter also designed the famous WWF panda logo.In 1973 Sir Peter was knighted for his services to conservation, the first person to be so honoured. He died in 1989.
