D&G Heritage members heard a talk on the wildlife in danger of extinction in Dumfries and Galloway at their latest meeting

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The first meeting of 2025 of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society (D&G Heritage) was held on Friday, January 17 at The Bridge, Dumfries, and also on-line via Zoom.The speaker was Liam Templeton, project officer for Species on the Edge, an organisation responsible for the conservation of species of wildlife in danger of extinction in the region.The talk began with an outline of the problems facing the species under consideration.

Birds included terns, whose coastal nest sites are susceptible to wash from ferries and disturbance by irresponsible dog walkers.

Other species, such as curlew, lapwing and stonechat, are losing breeding grounds due to modification of grasslands and rough grazing areas, which needs to be addressed through working with landowners.

The same applies to Greenland white-fronted geese, which use natural grasslands for feeding in winter, and the red-billed chough, which is now extinct in our region but could repopulate from the breeding population on the nearby Isle of Man.Habitat loss is also thought to be responsible for a 46 per cent drop in the population of a rare butterfly, the northern brown argus, since the 1990s.