Conservation wrap-up 2024
Posted 16 Dec 2024
December is a great time to reflect on the year’s achievements. We've had a fantastic year, initiating several new projects to put us firmly on track to achieve our mission of reversing the decline of 50 species by 2030.
From pine hoverflies to Asian elephants, we are proud to be working to protect a wide variety of species. Our team includes field staff, conservation scientists, zookeepers, geneticists, laboratory technicians and veterinary surgeons, diverse experience that allows us to work with a diversity of species on many different projects around the world.
Highlights from the field team
In February, members of our field team attended the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) COP14 in Uzbekistan to champion the cause of a very grumpy little cat. The little-known Pallas’s cat receives scant attention compared to its larger cousin, the snow leopard. To improve protection of this species, our team successfully lobbied for the Pallas’s cat to be listed under the CMS, a brilliant result which will greatly improve coordination of conservation activities to address the significant threats facing this small cat. Those who would like to see a Pallas’s cat should head along to Edinburgh Zoo visit our newly arrived conservation ambassador Akiko!
Our field team also had several exciting developments in our invertebrate projects, including the launch of a new initiative to learn more about the little-known blood red longhorn beetle in the Cairngorms National Park. Surveys conducted with a team of keen volunteers were an unprecedented success. Preparing ourselves to potentially find no beetles at all, we found over 150, more than have been recorded in the UK in the past 100 years! The survey success enabled us to run a pilot conservation breeding effort exploring whether it might be possible to run a full-scale breeding and reintroduction programme to eventually help boost the numbers of this elusive species.
RZSS WildGenes and the biobank
The RZSS WildGenes team, who operate the only zoo-based conservation genetics lab in the UK, had a great year. Several new projects got underway, including with Asian elephants in Laos and Cambodia, Bengal floricans in Cambodia, red squirrels in Scotland and Nahan’s partridge in Uganda. The team also built capacity at our partner conservation genetics lab at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, delivering training in-country and hosting a visit from lab technician Sophorn Keath to train her in microsatellite genotyping, skills she is now using on the Asian elephant project.
In May, RZSS WildGenes research scientist Dr Heather Ritchie-Parker spoke at a conference about the use of Oxford Nanopore Sequencing Technology to support genome sequencing of threatened species. The event included a live sequencing demonstration which was used to generate much needed whole genomes for a range of threatened species including for our own Northern rockhopper penguin and dark bordered beauty moth projects.
At the RZSS WildGenes Biobank, where we store genetic material at ultra-low temperatures for use in conservation research, we hit some major milestones. This year we added 1060 new zoological samples to the biobank, bringing our total number of species held up to 527! This incredible diversity of samples is an important safeguard for ongoing and future conservation efforts to restore species.
Veterinary science for conservation
The vet team had their work cut out this year, trying to understand a bacterial infection in our conservation breeding programme for medicinal leeches, a species found in just three locations in Scotland. The team’s findings are being prepared for publication – perhaps unsurprisingly, very little is known about leech health! Thanks to our vets’ excellent advice and the meticulous care of our field team, the leeches went on to have a fantastic breeding season, with over twenty leech babies produced.
Another of our vets, Dr Georgina Cole, made excellent progress leading our flapper skate health monitoring project. Flapper skate are the largest skate species in Europe but are critically endangered globally, with little known about their biology. Georgina has collected data from 69 skate in Scotland this year and written a publication about the flapper skate’s physiological responses to capture and handing.
Fires in Brazil
It’s also important to reflect on the year’s low points, such as the brutal fires raging across Brazil for parts of the year. This challenge has been difficult for our project partner, the Wild Animal Institute (ICAS) to tackle. Delivering training sessions in firefighting has helped the situation in the Pantanal wetlands, where one of the ranches in the ICAS fire brigade helped extinguish an out of control fire, preventing catastrophic habitat destruction for the giant armadillos and giant anteaters that the charity works to protect, and all the other precious biodiversity that calls the Pantanal home.
Saving Wildcats in Scotland
Finally, we couldn’t do a wrap up of our year without mentioning our Saving Wildcats partnership project! It’s been an incredible few years for our wildcat conservation work, with nine additional wildcats released in 2024, bringing the number of wildcat releases up to 28 cats. Perhaps most exciting of all was the team recording evidence of 24 kittens born in the wild to released females! This is a major milestone for wildcat recovery in Scotland and an incredible result so soon after releases began in 2023.
Although three mortalities have been recorded since releases began, the team are still tracking fourteen individuals via their GPS-radio collars, and following another six on camera traps, with the whereabouts of only a few individuals unknown. Everything learnt about their movements and ecology may inform further releases in the future.
We’ve got big plans for all our projects in 2025, as well as hopes of working with even more species to maximise our impact.
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