Author interview with Elsa Panciroli: Beasts Before Us

Elsa Panciroli is a palaeontologist who studies the evolution and ecology of extinct animals – particularly mammals from the time of dinosaurs. She is a researcher based at the University of Oxford and an associate researcher at the National Museum of Scotland. A keen science communicator, she has contributed to The Guardian, Palaeontology Online and Biological Sciences Review, and co-hosts the Palaeocast podcast. Beasts Before Us is her first book and tells the amazing story of early mammal evolution, taking the reader back well before the dinosaurs even rose to prominence. Leading up to publication, we reached out to Elsa and asked her some questions.

Elsa Panciroli on the Isle of Skye

You write that you started your palaeontology career interested in dinosaurs and Ice Age megafauna. What turned you on to the path of our mammal ancestors?

Like so many things in life, it was serendipity. During my masters degree the renowned mammal palaeontologist, Prof Christine Janis, moved back to the UK from the US. I’d recently read her paper on giant extinct kangaroos and I was excited to meet her and learn more. It turned out she was offering a project studying mammal ankle bones, so although there were dinosaur projects available, I jumped at the chance to work with Christine. I learned so much from her, she was (and still is) a brilliant mentor. I soon realised what a lot of questions were still to be answered about extinct mammals. Afterwards, I did my PhD on little-known Jurassic mammals from Scotland, and started exploring their even more ancient past – I just couldn’t believe what I discovered! That’s why I wanted to write the book, to share what I had learned.

Given that we are so biased to mammals where, for example, conservation is concerned, why do you think that there has been so little mainstream interest in early mammal evolution? Your book shows that there is a fascinating story playing out before dinosaurs even evolved. Do the dinosaurs in that sense enjoy the advantage of incumbency in our imagination? Or do the details of mammal evolution not easily lend themselves to telling a captivating story?

I disagree that mammal evolution doesn’t lend itself to story-telling, but the many authors who’ve tackled the subject up to now focused on recent evolution and assumed everything before then wasn’t relevant. I wrote Beasts Before Us because our ancient relatives are incredible! I was quite shocked by this whole plethora of animals that not only predate the dinosaurs, but were incredibly successful, bizarre and exciting. They were the first to evolve iconic features we are fascinated by today, like large body size, sabre-teeth and gnarly horns. It’s just the icing on the cake that they are actually related to us. I wanted to show people the history of mammals isn’t a story of waiting in the wings for the dinosaurs to disappear, but of the stunning success our lineage (synapsids) over the last 350 million years, including before dinosaurs even existed.

I think there are a few different reasons why early mammal evolution doesn’t get the same love as dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are kind of otherworldly – in fact you might argue they are almost mythical – so naturally this makes them extremely compelling. As a result, people forget to look beyond them at what else has happened in evolutionary history. The media don’t help, because they overly focus on dinosaurs and always plaster them centre stage. Dinosaurs have become a touchstone for ancient, and other discoveries are always placed in relation to them. There is a lot of dino-noise to get through if you want to tell the stories of other animal groups!

An important theme in your book is that evolution is not a march of progress but a process of adaptation to current circumstances. It seems that our early ancestors thoroughly explored the space of possibilities and pioneered both behaviours (e.g. digging underground burrows) and morphology (e.g. sabre-toothed therapsids) that would later evolve again independently through convergent evolution. Are there examples of morphological adaptations or suspected behaviours in early mammals that have not reoccurred in more recent mammal evolution?

That’s a really interesting question! As we make new fossil discoveries, it’s increasingly apparent that there is very little happening on Earth today that hasn’t been done multiple times before by other animals. Of the top of my head, I can’t think of anything they – or other animals – did in the past that hasn’t reappeared again, nature is just like that. If anyone can think of something they can always tweet me about it!

I thought one very interesting idea you mention concerns the adaptive radiation of therians, i.e. the group that gave rise to both marsupials and the placental mammals to which we belong. They remained a species-poor group until after the dinosaurs went extinct, and it is traditionally thought it was competition from the dinosaurs that held them back. Instead, here, and in the Current Biology paper that just been published (congratulations, by the way), you argue that it was competition from other mammaliaform groups that held back the therians. Can you give us the elevator pitch in support of this idea?

Part of the problem is that the fossil record can be very misleading, and we can’t easily separate cause and effect. People saw that mammals became larger when non-bird dinosaurs disappeared, and so they drew a causal line between the two. To tackle this issue more robustly, my co-authors and I compiled big datasets of the changes taking place in the skeletons and teeth of mammals from the time of dinosaurs, and just afterwards. Our results showed that in the earlier-branching groups of mammals the number of changes taking place in their bodies continued to rise – in other words, they were still splitting into new groups and evolving new specialisations. But for the therian mammals (which include the ancestors and relatives of all modern mammals except platypuses and echidna), the number of changes was pretty flat in the time of dinosaurs. That is, until the disappearance of the earlier mammal groups – some of which didn’t become extinct until after the non-bird dinosaurs. Crucially, it wasn’t until these later extinctions that we really see therians diversifying more widely, therefore showing that it was competition with the other mammals that had been preventing them from diversifying prior to that point.

You mention Clashach quarry in Scotland as a site of great scientific interest due to its record of fossil footprints. I often shudder to think how many body and trace fossils are destroyed forever during mining and construction activities. Do you generally find commercial operators willing or interested to cease or move activities when fossils are found? Or would most rather just quietly ignore them to prevent costly delays?

Although you’re right that fossils are destroyed during extraction, we can’t forget that most fossils wouldn’t have been discovered in the first place if it wasn’t for quarrying and mining! The ties between extractive industries and palaeontology are really important, but they also form part of the colonialist history of the discipline, which we must acknowledge. The attitude of extraction companies varies from place to place, but many are really keen to support scientific study as much as they can. For example I know several have welcomed info sheets and talks from experts on how to recognise fossils, so that the workers know what to look out for. They’ll often put aside potential fossil finds so that they can be examined and studied. It’s hard to find a balance between industry and conservation, but for the most part quarry workers are just as excited about fossils as everyone else!

In your book, you broach the sensitive issue of decolonisation, acknowledging the often dark and unsavoury history of our scientific disciplines. Beyond words, what actions do you think are necessary to get to terms with our past? For example, is the repatriation of museum specimens always the preferred option?

Decolonising science and museum collections is a complex subject, and I’m not an expert, but the first step for all of us is to listen: we need to hear about, understand, and explore the legacy of colonialism and empire on our lives, not dismiss it. Repatriation of objects is appropriate in some cases, but there are many other things that need to happen as well. For example many objects are completely separated from their context – where they came from, the circumstances of their collection, and who collected them. We need to ask ourselves what the purpose of collections actually is now, who they are for? The scientific system itself was built in such a way that it biases who carries out research, how we carry it out, how it’s published, and who benefits. It’s going to take time and thought to rebuild it to be more equitable.

I was very impressed with the visual language you use throughout this book and read that you have a keen interest in science communication. I am a regular listener of the Palaeocast podcast that you co-host, but beyond that, what other platforms and outlets do you contribute to?

I have to admit I don’t keep a regular online presence at the moment, except for my twitter feed! I used to blog, but as I’ve ended up writing more articles (I wrote for The Guardian for a while, and some other freelance work) I’ve had less time. However, when possible I place content on my YouTube channel, particularly short videos explaining new research, or talking about fossils. I’ve also done some readings of Beasts Before Us, if you want a wee taster!

Beasts Before Us is your first book. Now that it has been published, is it time to turn your attention back to research, or was the experience rewarding enough that we can look forward to more books in the future?

I’ve actually been carrying out my research alongside writing, which has been pretty exhausting! It’ll be nice to devote more attention just to the research for a while. Having said that, I do have a second book lined up, and many more ideas in the queue, so you can definitely expect more in the future!

 

Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origins and Evolution
By: Elsa Panciroli

 

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Author Interview with Adam Nicolson: The Sea Is Not Made of Water

From the author of The Seabird’s Cry, Adam Nicolson’s new book The Sea Is Not Made of Water offers a glimpse into the intricacies and minutiae of the intertidal zone. Blending ecology and human history, poetry and prose, Adam takes us on a fascinating journey to the shore.

Adam is a journalist and prize-winning author of books on history, landscape and nature – among many other accolades, he won the 2018 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. He has also made several television and radio series on a variety of subjects.

First of all, we loved The Seabird’s Cry and were very excited to learn of The Sea Is Not Made of Water about intertidal zones. Could you tell us about what drew you to this habitat and the inspiration behind your book?

For nearly thirty years now I have been going to stay in a small house at the head of a bay on the west coast of Scotland. It is somewhere my wife’s family have been going for generations and now our children and grandchildren love it too. It has everything you might long for from a place like that: cliffs, woods, waterfalls, a dark beach made of basalt sands, a lighthouse, a ruined castle, stories, beauty, birds, fish; but one thing it did not have because of the geology, was a rockpool. For years I have dreamed of making one – a place of stillness set in the tide, and this book is the story of how I made three of them in different parts of the bay; one dug in with a pickaxe; one made by damming a narrow exit to the sea from a hollow so that the dam held the pool behind it; and one by making a circular wall low down in the intertidal.

The foreshore belongs here to the Scottish crown, and so I got permission to do this first and then set about making the pools – wanting them to be cups of what I learned to call bio-receptivity – beginning with quite literally a rock-pool, an empty planetary space, and then waiting to see what the sea would deliver to them. An enlargement of the habitat. A tiny gesture to counteract the lack of accommodation we are all making for the natural world. In a way, no more than making sandcastles, but sandcastles that would invite their inhabitants in and would last more than a single tide.

Shorelines and rock pools are incredibly biodiverse environments; how did you decide which species to write about?

It was not about rarities. I thought for a while I should call the book ‘All the Usual Beauty’. And anyway the species selected themselves. I began at the top of the beach at the spring equinox, although there was not a hint of spring, when I started poking around in the seaweeds thrown up there by the winter storms. Nothing else seemed to be alive on this frozen March day, but lift away the lid of weed and quite literally the sandhoppers sprang into life around me. Again and again they went though their routine: leap, wriggle, play dead, leap, wriggle, play dead. Almost toy-like in their repetitions.

And so that provided the model – see what was there and look carefully at it. Of course, books like mine are entirely parasitic on the work of many generations of biologists and that too turned out to be the pattern. Watch the sand hoppers and then read about them. Read about them and see how much of what I read I could find on the shore. With prawns, winkles, shore crabs, anemones, limpets, sea-stars, urchins and barnacles, I simply oscillated between the pools and my books: what was there? What had people discovered about them? How did they interact? What were the principles governing their presence or absence? And with all of that came the repeated and slightly sobering realisation that unless I knew to look for something it was very difficult to see it was there. Mysteriously, we are often blind to what is in front of our eyes.

Did you discover anything particularly interesting that you were previously unaware of during your research?

So much! I never knew that sandhoppers could inherit from their parents an understanding of where the sea was and how to get there. That winkles can tell if a crab has been in their pool. That crabs, even in the tiniest of larval stages, can recognise the movements and timings of the tides. That sea anemones can identify other sea anemones that are not their relations and effectively destroy them. That prawns have an imagination – that might sound like too much, but it has been shown that they can remember past pain and project it into present and future anxieties. Anxiety is different from fear; it is a fear of what might be there. In other words a prawn can think beyond its present reality.

Some of my most treasured childhood memories involve investigating Dorset shorelines and delighting in the incredible variety of species I would find there. What do you think it is about the shoreline that people connect with so strongly?

I think maybe the shore is so alluring because it is both so strange and so easily to hand. It is a revelation of another world a yard or two away from our own. The temptation is to think of the pool as a natural garden, but it is a very odd and very wild garden. Looking perhaps as settled and delicate as a painting but in fact a theatre and cockpit of competition and rivalry. And garden whose walls are dissolved twice a day, an enclosure that becomes part of the general world with every high tide. That ambiguity is what entranced me, the sense of its being a micro-ocean, a micro-arcadia, a micro-laboratory in which all kinds of intimacies and precision in natural beings can be witnessed an inch beneath your nose.

Although adaptable, rocky shore inhabitants are not invincible, what do you think is the biggest threat to the rocky shore ecosystem and are some species more at risk than others?

Sea-level rise should not cause the inhabitants of rocky shores too many problems. They will climb the rocks in time with the water. But other anthropogenic effects are quite likely to be catastrophic. Animals that depend on their shell for protection are living in an increasingly hostile world. Everywhere in the North Atlantic outside Europe, as the Dutch evolutionary biologist Geerat J. Vermeij has written, an increase in shell thickness has been taken as a response ‘to the spread of the introduced European green crab (Carcinus maenas), but these changes may also have resulted from an overall increase in the abundance of native shell-crushing crabs (Cancer spp.) and lobsters (Homarus americanus) as the predators (including cod) of these crustaceans were overfished’.

The destruction of the cod and the collapse of their position as an apex predator in the Atlantic has made it a sea of claws. That hugely increased claw count, and competition between the clawed animals, has risen to the point where the shell-dwellers are feeling the pressure and have responded as shell-dwellers and shell-wearers must: by thickening their defences and toughening their lives.

But modern life has provided them with another hurdle: the acidification of the world ocean. One-third of all the carbon dioxide that has been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been absorbed by seawater, turning it acid. Making shells and skeletons, drawing calcium carbonate from the water, is more difficult in an acid sea. All kinds of ripple effects will spread out from that: more crabs, fewer winkles, denser algae and a disruption of the entire coastal ecosystem.

The effect is more than purely chemical. When sea-fish are exposed to acid water, their senses of smell and hearing are both disrupted. Young fish find it more difficult to learn, become less frightened by danger and are even attracted to the smell of predators. The same now seems to be true of shellfish. Acid water is distorting the minds of animals in the entire ecosystem.

Do you have any further projects or books in the pipeline?

I do! I am writing a long piece on English chalk-streams and also slowly researching a book about the birds in the wood at home. And I would love to write something one day about the mammals of the Scottish sea. Otters, seals, whales and dolphins. One day!

The Sea Is Not Made of Water
By: Adam Nicolson
Hardback | Due June 2021 | £16.99 £19.99

 

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

NHBS In the Field – H2a Hydrophone

The H2a hydrophone from Aquarian Audio is a mid-range hydrophone, allowing high quality recordings for professionals, whilst remaining affordable for marine naturalists.

Like most hydrophones, the H2a is powered via a compatible recording device. Available with either a TRS 3.5mm jack (plug-in power required), or XLR connector (phantom power required) and a variety of cable lengths, you are sure to find an option suitable for your requirements.

How We Tested

We tested the H2a hydrophone across two days in varying weather conditions in early June 2021.

Our kit was made up of the 3.5mm jack H2a hydrophone, in conjunction with an old DR-05 Tascam recorder and a pair of earphones. The DR-05 is actually a discontinued model, however we do sell it’s successor, the updated DR-05X. The H2a will work well with any recorder with a 3.5mm port that can provide plug-in power. Many recorders offer this ability, but if you are unsure please do check your manual.

Setting up the hydrophone system was very straightforward. Once plug-in power was switched on via the recorder’s menu settings, we simply plugged in the H2a to the mic-in socket and were ready to begin.

Tests were performed in a number of environments including rockpools, off a small boat in deeper water and a controlled environment (container of water). Between these locations, we did find adjusting the gain accordingly was necessary, however this was straightforward, using the Tascam recorder’s input level controls.

In shallower, more disturbed water we tried attaching the cable to a makeshift ‘boom pole’ aiming to gain greater control over the movement of the hydrophone while reducing handling noise.

It is built to be durable, with a stainless steel core and rubber covering, but we still handled it with care and rinsed and dried it after each use. Aquarian themselves say the H2a can survive accidental drops, however we chose not to test this!

Recordings were made on the Tascam device, to a micro-SD card and then transferred to a computer. The open-source audio program Audacity was used to view the waveform, including adjusting levels, and also allowed us to plot the frequency spectrum.

What we found

Our initial impression was that the H2a was surprisingly lightweight and compact, measuring just 25mm x 46mm (without the cable) and weighing little over a hundred grams. This made for easy packing in a small rucksack.

The hydrophone comes in neat cardboard packaging which is not particularly suitable for use on location. Despite the hardiness of the hydrophone itself, it would certainly provide peace of mind to purchase or use some form of carry case. We would not, however, recommend a waterproof case as it may trap moisture and salts that could eventually lead to corrosion.

The hydrophone is highly sensitive and so was vulnerable to signal overload if knocked accidentally or handled roughly. During recording, our main obstacle was noise from cable handling, which was noticeable during playback. This is to be expected with any hydrophone and certainly was not the worst I have experienced, but was still slightly frustrating. We quickly learned to ensure the cable was lowered ‘hand over hand’ into deep water to minimise noise.

Even with only a 3 metre cable, slight tangling did occur, which over time could lead to damage. For future uses with longer cables we would consider investing in or making a cable spool/reel. A spool would likely also reduce the experienced cable handling noise.

In shallower water, especially along the tide line, the makeshift pole attachment was very successful and made a significant difference to cable noise level. It also allowed us to position the hydrophone with precision and avoid damage that could have occured from the stronger waves dragging it towards nearby rocks.

When working from the boat in deeper water, we simply released the cable by hand as the current was slow. We found the shape and weighting (high specific gravity) to be a clever design that kept the hydrophone more-or-less vertical even in currents. Although it is worth noting that we only tested this ourselves in relatively slow moving water.

Below is a sequence of recordings taken in varying locations. The first exhibits the sound produced by the paddling of the small boat. The hydrophone performed very well while being dragged behind the boat, catching the bubbling as the paddles broke the surface.

Of particular interest to us in the field was the man-made noise pollution from the nearby (0.5 miles away) docks. Despite being rather un-noticeable by air, loud hammering was clear through the hydrophone.

The final recording in the audio above was taken at a rising tide, with gentle waves shifting the sand and sediment below the hydrophone.

While we had heard reports that some people have found sensitivity dropping off at higher frequencies with this unit and other hydrophones, our field tests produced recorded sounds up to 10kHz easily.

Our Opinion

Clear audio with limited unwanted noise was easily produced with the H2a hydrophone. It provides a fantastic way for ocean lovers and scientists alike to explore life underwater.

A few practical accessories such as a pole and spool would be worth considering as they can really improve audio quality while also making work in the field just that little bit simpler.

With further experimentation and potentially a bit of luck with interesting sound sources, I am confident that the H2a will continue to yield high quality recordings at a very fair price point.


The H2a hydrophone is available from the NHBS website on its own or as part of a kit including the Tascam DR-05X recorder.

Note: When deciding upon a model it is recommended to choose based first and foremost on compatibility with your recorder’s connector type. XLR is however, often the preferred choice for professionals due in part to reduced electromagnetic interference.

Visit nhbs.com to view our full range of hydrophones. If you have any questions about our range or would like some advice on the right product for you, then please contact us via email at customer.services@nhbs.com or phone on 01803 865913.

 

An Evening at Sharpham – Bat and insect survey

The lengthening evenings of late Spring or early Summer are an ideal time for an evening wildlife walk. Now the vegetation has become more lush and the air has become warmer, the insects form in thicker clouds and the bats are now on the wing.

The Sharpham estate is a 550-acre area which runs alongside the River Dart just outside Totnes. This historic landscape is home to the Sharpham Trust, an educational charity whose Wild for People project aims to rewild areas of the estate and enhance biodiversity in the region. To read more about the history of the Sharpham Estate and the launch of their Wild for People project, click here.

A few of us from NHBS walked up to the Sharpham estate where we met a group of Ambios’s conservation volunteers and trainees for an evening wildlife walk. We brought a selection of bat detectors with us and explained the differences between our most popular professional detectors. We distributed any active bat detectors among the volunteers and showed them how each type worked. We then left the farm just as dusk was settling with detectors armed and ready.

As we wandered the footpaths and fields of the estate, we watched several Noctule and Leisler’s bats commute high above the fields, along with some Common and Soprano pipistrelles zipping along the hedgeline foraging.

We then cut across a field to a dead tree where NHBS Wildlife Equipment Specialist Josh had previously set some insect bait traps. The traps were baited with a mix of banana and beer and had been set in the hopes of catching saproxylic beetles emerging from dead wood.

Josh has also been monitoring the beetle diversity of Sharpham through a series of pitfall traps placed across the estate, although prior to our walk they had unfortunately been closed due to heavy rain. Unfortunately no beetles were found in the traps this time, but we did spot a variety of species scurrying along the field and forest paths including Anchomenus dorsalis, Dromius agilis and Staphylinus dimidiaticornis, along with the very common Nebria brevicollis (gazelle beetle) and Pterostichus madidus (black clock beetle).

Once it was much darker, on our way back up to the farm, we also had the pleasure of listening to the alien-like call of a sitting Lesser Horseshoe bat that was perched just meters away from the group. It made for an exciting end to the walk and we hope to detect even more bat species through passive detector recordings.


See the full range of bat detectors and insect survey equipment on the NHBS website.

To find out more about Ambios and the work of Lower Sharpham Farm, please visit https://www.ambios.net/.

Conservation Land Management: Summer 2021

Conservation Land Management (CLM) magazine is designed for those involved in managing land for conservation, and is an invaluable source of information on good conservation management practice. Here, Assistant Editor Catherine Mitson provides a summary of the range of articles featured in the new Summer issue.

Monitoring and surveying techniques in conservation and ecology are constantly changing and improving. The use of thermal imaging is one example of a non-invasive method that is becoming a popular choice for those involved in wildlife surveys. Dan Brown, ecologist and founder of Wild Discovery, provides an overview of thermal imaging and the potential for its wider application in species monitoring, surveying and ecological consultancy, while still keeping some of its limitations in mind.

Citizen science also plays an important role in species surveys, and Claire Boothby, Training and Surveys Officer for the Bats in Churches project, describes an opportunity for the public to get involved in bat surveys. Bats can often be found roosting in churches, but due to the open roof structure of many of these buildings, the architecture and items housed inside are susceptible to damage from bat droppings and urine, to the despair of church users. The Bats in Churches project is trialling mitigation measures to enable both humans and bats to use churches harmoniously. This article showcases some churches where these mitigation measures have been implemented successfully and describes how the public can take part in the Bats in Churches Study to improve our current knowledge of how bats use churches.

Also in this issue, James Adler and Steve Proud describe the Pirbright Red Deer Project. The Pirbright Range Danger Area (RDA) in Surrey is one of the most extensive and least disturbed tracts of heathland in southern Britain but as this is an active firing range, traditional means of heathland management are not practical. Instead, red deer have been used for conservation grazing to keep vegetation in check, to the benefit of the rarities found at Pirbright. This article discusses the importance of Pirbright and the development, rationale, and results to date of the Red Deer Project.

Jos Milner takes us north to the Cairngorms National Park where the Our Water Environment project, delivered by the Tomintoul & Glenlivet Landscape Partnership, has set out to restore and enhance the river Avon catchment. Here the river bank has suffered from bank erosion and sedimentation as a result of overgrazing and loss of riparian tree cover. This article explains how green engineering techniques, which use natural materials such as logs or coir matting as a form of bank protection, have been implemented on the River Avon, and how these could provide an opportunity for landscape-scale river restoration.

The final article in the Summer issue looks at how one farmer changed the way he farms to benefit wildlife. Martin Lines is a third-generation farmer and contractor, and with the advice provided by Farm Wildlife, he no longer uses insecticides on his land and has instead shifted to an Integrated Pest Management approach. Kathryn Smith and Martin Lines discuss what this has meant for practical farming operations, and the impact this has had on both crop yields and wildlife.

In this and every issue you can expect to see Briefing, keeping you up to date on the latest training courses, events and publications, and On the ground which provides helpful tips or updates on products relevant to land management.

Other features that regularly appear in CLM include Viewpoint, a similar length to our main articles, but here authors can voice their own views on various conservation issues, and Review, which can include letters from readers or updates from our authors.

CLM is published four times a year in March, June, September and December, and is available by subscription only, delivered straight to your door. Subscriptions start from £22 per year. Previous back issues are also available to purchase individually (subject to availability).

If you are involved in a conservation project and think your experiences could be useful to other practitioners, we would love to hear from you. If you are interested in writing for CLM feel free to contact us – we will be happy to discuss your ideas with you.

Mammal Society: Q&A with Stephanie Wray

The Mammal Society is a charity dedicated to the research and conservation of Britain’s mammals. By surveying, monitoring, researching, and sharing information about the state of mammals, it contributes to conservation efforts to help maintain these species.

Stephanie Wray

We recently spoke to Stephanie Wray, the new Chair of Mammal Society, who kindly took the time to answer some questions about her background, her ambitions for the charity, and some ways in which you can get involved and support mammal conservation.

 

 


1. First, could you tell us a little bit about the Mammal Society and the important work that it does?

The Mammal Society is a charity which works towards the conservation of British mammals based on sound science. We were started in the 1950s and have always had both a strong academic member base of the ecologists and natural scientists who study our wild mammals, but also a fantastic body of amateur naturalists who are fascinated by mammals and willing to give up their free time to learn more about them and help their conservation in practical ways. Over time our membership has grown to include, for example, ecological consultants who work with protected species, protecting them from development, and many others who just love mammals. Increasingly we are benefiting from support from members of the public who, while they may not be able to devote time to practical projects themselves, care deeply about the British countryside and our iconic mammal species and want to help us to help them. At the moment we are developing exciting projects looking at the conservation of mountain hares, our amazing native hare which turns white in the winter and which may be threatened by climate change, and the harvest mouse, a species of traditional farmland as small as a two-pence piece and increasingly threatened by the way we manage our countryside.

Mountain Hare, Cairngorms by Sorcha Lewis (Mammal Photographer of the Year 2020)

2. From your PhD on brown hares in the 1990’s and a post-doc on Livingstone’s bat on the Comores, to your role as past president of the CIEEM and, most recently, your position as director of Biocensus and founder of specialist consultancy Nature Positive, you’ve had an incredibly fascinating and influential career so far. What attracted you to the position of Chair of the Mammal Society?

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Mammal Society, since my first Mammal Society conference in 1989. It’s where, a couple of years later, I presented my first scientific talk on the results of my PhD research and where I met many other mammal enthusiasts who have remained lifelong friends. Many of the Society’s members, professional and volunteer, have helped me with my research over the years, turning up in fair weather or foul to help me catch and radio-collar mammals to learn more about their habits, collect samples of dropping and other ‘glamorous’ tasks. So I want to be able to give something back, to make sure that the Society continues to grow and acts as an effective, science-backed voice for the conservation of wildlife in the UK. Our members have a huge amount of knowledge and experience and I want to make sure that we can leverage that to have our voices heard and deliver the right outcomes for conservation.

3. Unusually for an ecologist, you also have a Master’s degree in Business Administration. Do you think that marketing, economics, and the social sciences in general have an important role to play in ecology and conservation?

Well, you have done your research – I do indeed! We hear a lot about the bad things that businesses do, but the economic reach, innovation and entrepreneurship of industry can also act as a huge power for good. Businesses are starting to realise that their entire operations depend on biodiversity and that working to protect the natural world is not just a philanthropic exercise, it’s sound business sense. Sometimes how a business affects the environment is very obvious (they may use a lot of water or harvest a wild species) but in many cases it is hidden deep in their supply chains. Let’s say that you are a manufacturer of oat milk. You will have a great narrative around the climate impacts of your product compared to dairy milk, soy and almonds – but what about the biodiversity impacts? If the oats you buy are grown at a factory scale, removing hedges and ploughing up to the field boundaries, with the addition of lots of artificial fertilisers or pesticides, then you will have undone all those climate benefits through your impacts on nature – and the decline in the harvest mouse population would be an indicator of that. Now that is not just a concern to the Mammal Society – it’s a risk to your business in terms of future costs (as the environment becomes more degraded then we lose soil fertility and pollinator species, and yields will fall) in terms of your reputation (we’re drinking oat milk in the first place because we care about the environment) and in terms of your ability to attract investment (the institutional lenders don’t want to be on the wrong side of the next ‘palm oil’ issue). Under that kind of pressure, businesses can be incredibly flexible and develop new approaches, like regenerative farming, which can represent a win-win – a premium product for them, a healthier environment for everyone.

4. Taking on the role of Chair of a charity during a global pandemic must be an exciting yet challenging prospect. What are your hopes and ambitions for the charity over the next few years?

It is certainly an exciting time to take on a new role. Particularly during our first ‘lock down’ in Britain last year I think we all really appreciated our limited time outdoors and took time to enjoy those short nature ‘snacks’. For some that meant spotting wild goats or deer in the car-free streets, for others it may have been a grey squirrel or urban fox in the garden. My hope is that as we recover from the pandemic we don’t lose sight of that link to nature, and that as society moves forward it will be with increased understanding of and respect for the way the natural environment supports and underpins everything we do. My ambition for the next phase of the Mammal Society’s life is to really raise our profile to that of a household name alongside larger charities such as RSPB and WWF. I want to make sure that we develop our communications strategy, and through our website, publications and social media engagement, reach a wider audience and raise the profile of British mammals and their conservation in line with our charitable objectives. I want us to continue delivering the highest quality of scientific research and to proactively engage with government and the media on mammal conservation and management issues to contribute to the delivery of evidence-based policy.

Female Muntjac by Keith Elcombe (Mammal Photographer of the Year 2021)

5. As stated on your website: Britain is now recognised as one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world. Are you broadly optimistic about the future of mammals in the UK?

I think we have to be; the only viable option for human society is to live in harmony with nature. This year is a hugely important one for nature with the COP15 meeting in China in October on the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and the related COP26 meeting on climate change in Glasgow in November. These will be decisive in setting out international approaches to protected areas and sustainable use of the commodities we harvest from nature. Here in the UK, we have clear commitments arising from our exit from the EU, in the government’s 25 year environment plan, and through measures such as mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain in the forthcoming Environment Bill. All the pieces are there, we just need to commit to putting them together into a coherent protection framework. One quarter of British mammals are currently at risk, but it isn’t too late to bend the curve on extinctions and watch our biodiversity flourish again.

6. Finally, for any of our readers who are wanting to get involved with mammal conservation in the UK, what are the most important things that they can be doing right now?

Firstly (obviously!) have a look at the Mammal Society’s website (https://www.mammal.org.uk/support-us/) and you will find all sorts of things you can do to help from sending us records of mammals you have seen to organising a bake sale (hedgehog cupcakes, anyone?). In your day to day life, here are a few things you might try to help mammals.

  • Garden with nature in mind. If you have a garden, try to leave a wild corner with food for wildlife particularly in the autumn and winter. An open compost heap if you have space is helpful to invertebrates, reptiles and small mammals (but don’t add any cooked food!) If you have a pond, make sure the sides are not too steep or add a ramp to make sure thirsty creatures don’t fall in and drown. Consider leaving food out for hedgehogs (cat food, never milk) or badgers (they aren’t too fussy!) if you are lucky enough to have them. Leave small gaps under fences to make sure hedgehogs and other small mammals can move around. If you don’t have a garden, a window-box or a pot of herbs on the doorstep can provide a source of food for pollinators and contribute to biodiversity.
  • One of the biggest threats to nature is how we manage the countryside and as consumers we can all send a message about what we want agri-business to do. Choose products wisely – is there embedded destruction of the countryside in that breakfast cereal? Write to the supermarket or the manufacturer and ask them how they manage their impacts on biodiversity – both directly and through the ingredients they buy in.
  • Write to your local MP and ask them what they will be doing to make sure that even removed from the EU’s strong environmental legislation, Britain will be a leader in environmental protection. The Wildlife and Countryside Act, which is the key piece of legislation for protecting mammal species such as bats, otters and dormice, is under review this year. Ask your MP to vote to retain and add to the strict protection we have for some mammal species and to prevent it being watered down.
  • And most importantly – just go out there and watch mammals. I may be biased, but for me there is nothing better than being out in the countryside early on a spring morning watching the hares chasing around and knocking seven bells out of each other. You might like to stay up late watching badgers or bats, or enjoy the crazy antics of a squirrel on a bird feeder. It’s important that we engage with nature and encourage our children to do the same. If we don’t see and understand wildlife, we won’t fight for it. And, trust me, we need to fight for it.

You can find out more about Mammal Society from their website and by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

 

No Mow May 2021

Plantlife’s “No Mow May” campaign asked gardeners around the UK to lock up their lawnmower and let the wild flowers in their lawn bloom. This simple change in mowing has been shown to bring huge benefits, providing a feast of nectar for our hungry pollinators.

At the end of May, Plantlife opened its “Every Flower Counts” survey, a fun and easy way to discover how many bees the UK’s lawns can feed. People from all around the country took part, recording the different flowers which had bloomed on their lawn. These results will then be compiled to produce the National Nectar Score.

Image by Antonia Peacock

Here at NHBS we were delighted to take part in No Mow May, with a number of our staff members saying “no” to the mow in order to help our bees, butterflies, and wildlife!

You can find out how we got on below:

Outside the NHBS building

The grass outside the NHBS building was left unmown during May, allowing lots of daises, dandelions and speedwell to bloom. This created a beneficial space for a variety of insects and pollinators.

Image by Antonia Peacock

Nigel

Nigel turned his lawn into a wild haven, allowing an abundance of dandelions and forget-me-nots to blossom.

Image by Nigel Jones

Nigel also contacted the local council, persuading them to set aside an unmown patch of grass at a local cemetery – an area usually mown twice a month from March to November. The photo below shows the contrast between the the unmown area and the area which continues to be mown and strimmed. As shown below, leaving an unmown patch has allowed a number of daises and dandelions to sprout up.

Image by Nigel Jones

Oli

Oli’s garden remains wild year-round, attracting a variety of plants and wildlife. Most recently, his garden saw the arrival of this rather impressive-looking slow worm!

Slow Worm by Oliver Haines

Natt

Natt’s lawn was left unmown during May, with the long grass helping to provide habitat for a variety of different insects.

Image by Natalie Mawson

Elle

Elle’s garden saw the blooming of these stunning buttercups, ideal for pollinators and other wildlife.

Image by Elle Mason

Marie

Marie’s lawn was also left to grow during May, allowing lots of lovely daises to sprout up.

Image by Marie Shute

Angeline

Angeline’s dog Freya enjoyed exploring a field of buttercups which had been left untouched during May.

Image by Angeline Rietveld  

Have you taken part in No Mow May and are keen to learn more about some of your local flora? You can find our ‘Guide to UK Wild Flower Identification’ here.

Author Interview with Sarah Gibson: Swifts and Us

Whirling swifts overhead are evocative of early summer, and their arrival to the UK brings joy to many. In Swifts and Us, Sarah Gibson explores what is currently known about swifts and their ancestry, while also addressing some of the contributing factors to their huge decline over the last few decades. She meets key experts and researchers as well as many determined individuals, all advocating for change to ensure the swifts’ survival.

Sarah Gibson is Press Officer for Shropshire Wildlife Trust, as well as Editor of the members’ magazine. She also regularly writes nature columns for her local magazines and newspapers. Sarah has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions below.

Firstly, could you tell us about where the motivation for your book came from?

I’d become passionate about swifts since moving into a town from the country.  Then I had a long period of illness and would be exhausted after the briefest of conversations and couldn’t even walk up my street – I was so slow I would be overtaken by very old people on Zimmer frames. It seemed as though I’d hit 97 five decades prematurely.

Then I got better and decided it was time to do something new with my life – alongside my now part-time job at Shropshire Wildlife Trust. I knew I could string words together, so decided to research and write a book about swifts to try and inspire others to love and take action for them too.

During your research, did you discover anything especially interesting that you were previously unaware of about swifts?

That hummingbirds are the swift’s closest relatives! Fossil evidence from 52 million years ago found in Wyoming, USA, revealed a bird that is the forerunner of both. The characteristic common feature is a super-strong, stout humerus bone, that would enable the swift to endure and flourish in perpetual flight and the hummingbird to flap its wings 50 times per second as it hovers over flowers collecting nectar. Their shared ancestry seems less surprising when you think about the intense aerial demands of both birds. 

Your book features exceptional and inspirational people that have fought to ensure nest spots are protected and accessible for returning swifts. Do you have any particular highlights or success stories that you’d like to talk about here?

Photograph by Laurent Godel

The Crescent Art Centre in Belfast is a cross-community cultural hub, bringing people together from all backgrounds.  It also has a thriving colony of swifts and when major renovation work began 12 years ago, the architects and builders worked with a local swift champion to ensure that access to the original nesting holes was retained and additional holes provided by integrating nest bricks into the walls. This is a great example of how renovation doesn’t have to lead to ruin for swifts.  It can be achieved, if thoughtfully carried out. This swift colony is now a living emblem of the arts centre and its aspirations – uniting people across boundaries. 

What role can citizen science play in surveying and monitoring swifts?

Photograph by Ulrich Tigges

Local surveys to identify swift breeding sites are very valuable. Knowledge of swift colonies can at times make it possible to work with building owners when renovation works are planned, so that nesting holes can be retained. When the data is fed through to local biological records centres, the presence of swifts in particular areas will be flagged up to planners who will sometimes, but not always make it a condition for development that nest bricks should be integrated into buildings.

The RSPB’s SwiftMapper is a useful tool and you can find out about surveying with local swift groups from Action for Swifts or Swift Conservation.

Habitat destruction, climate change and a stark reduction in their food supply are just a few factors contributing to the decline of swifts over the past 20 years – the odds appear completely stacked against them. Post-research for your book, do you feel any optimism for the future of these incredible birds?

Photograph by Piotr Szczypa

Contemplating the global crisis in nature can lead to despair. Our inability to prevent the destruction of wild habitats and the wild creatures that depend on it strikes deep into our souls, but worrying about the future cripples our ability to act, so I try to live in the present. It is what we do now that will shape the future and we need all of our energy to bring better times.

Climate change is inextricably linked to the degradation of nature. At last, there seems to be a glimmer of awakening at a political level to the fact that nurturing nature is essential for all our sakes. The campaign for 30% of land and sea to be protected by 2030 across the world brings hope but it needs a radical reset of values to be achieved.  All of us though, can do something to help bring it to reality. 

Do you have any current projects or plans for further books that you’d like to tell us about?

I’ve just been down to my local cemetery where there’s a project to turn the unmarked graves area into a wildflower meadow.  The yellow rattle seed we sowed last August is coming up, along with cowslips and violets.  It will be a living memorial for those buried beneath and will attract bees and other pollinators.  I’m also keeping an eye on the eaves of a medieval building managed by the town council. Restoration work on the timbers last autumn included six bespoke swift nest boxes – fingers crossed! 

There will be another book but I haven’t written it yet.  It will explore the connectedness of people with nature but I can’t reveal more just now.

 

Swifts and Us
By: Sarah Gibson
Hardback | Published May 2021 | £16.99

We have a very limited number of bookplates signed by Sarah, available while stocks last.

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Author Interview with David Stroud: International Treaties in Nature Conservation: A UK Perspective

To the casual observer, global summits and the resolutions they produce can seem frustratingly ineffective – repeating cycles of targets set, missed and reset, with no obvious progress. Yet despite the apparent inertia, when used to good effect these processes can be powerful tools for positive change. International Treaties in Nature Conservation: A UK Perspective provides a unique insight into the inner mechanisms of international treaties – their history, development, successes and failures – from those who have spent their lives working with them.

All of the authors involved in this book bring a huge wealth of expertise from their past and current positions within both statutory and non-government nature conservation organisations and academia. One of the authors, David Stroud, kindly agreed to answer a few of our questions.

International treaties are directly responsible for some of the greatest environmental success stories in modern history. But despite their importance, their role in nature conservation is not one many of us are familiar with. How important do you think it is that the mechanisms of these treaties are more widely understood?

It’s hugely important. Not only do these treaties establish some of the most important conservation objectives, but they provide a means of learning from other experience. Typically, international treaties set a broad goal – such as ‘the wise use of wetlands’ in the case of the Ramsar Convention – but are much less prescriptive as to exactly how this will be delivered nationally. Accordingly, there is much to learn from the broad diversity of other national conservation experience in implementing treaty obligations. Such comparative experiences make these treaties fascinating and their study valuable.

They also provide important drivers of national conservation policy. Thus, for example, it was the obligation under the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement to phase out the use of lead gunshot in wetlands by 2000 that created the policy incentive resulting in legislation across the UK to that effect from 1999.

There has been a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the departure of the UK from the European Union, and what this means for conservation. In terms of environmental protection and influence during the development of international treaties, what are the implications of leaving the EU?

Lots of issues here! As we explain, there are also serious risks to standards of environmental protection, especially the removal of strong compliance mechanisms that hold government to the environmental obligations it has assumed, and for which proposed domestic replacements look far from sufficient and have yet to be introduced. That said, some aspects of EU policy, most notably the Common Agricultural Policy, have driven significant harm to nature and to natural systems, and here the promise (as yet unrealised) of a new domestic approach which confines the payment of public money to the delivery of public goods, could mark a significant improvement in the state of nature in the farmed environment.

But there is also a risk that there may be an appetite to replace well-established processes and priorities, developed in partnership with EU states, with unique UK approaches, without reference to their efficacy. Whilst there is always room for improvement, including of existing EU processes, it is important that any such improvements build on existing systems and lessons learnt, and avoid causing delays and disruption that would take time we do not have, given the urgency of the environmental challenges we face.

Many aspects of environmental protection are inherently international in nature, with neither species, habitats nor many of the factors which drive their decline respecting national boundaries. As such there is a clear and ongoing imperative for international cooperation and alignment. The UK, outside of the EU, could take this opportunity to drive up ambition, but risks having less influence on environmental policy development, and becoming increasingly remote from wider thinking and ideas both within the EU and beyond, unless UK governments take pro-active steps to rebuild lines of communication and forums for engagement.

Chapter 8 ‘The impact of UK actions on an international scale’ goes into detail about the UK’s contributions to nature conservation beyond its borders, whether these be, for example, monetary, scientific research, or the role of UK non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In your opinion, do you think the UK is doing enough?

The UK is doing a lot, but by no means enough. Formal financial inputs to international treaties (which we estimate as £2,001,000 in 2019/20) are frankly trivial compared to either the size of the UK government budget in the same year (£842,000,000,000) or indeed the immensity of the issues to be addressed. Whilst both climate change and biodiversity loss have been recognised as ‘crises’ or ‘emergencies’, yet to date, it is hard to see responses from the UK, let alone the wider international community reflecting this, or being much more than complacent ‘business as usual’. And these will have no realistic chance of success.

Following on from the previous question, this book highlights the role and importance of NGOs (and a number of the authors themselves have been or are currently involved with NGOs). Do you think NGOs should have more involvement in environmental policy, both within the UK and on a global scale?

NGOs have a critical role to play in international conservation, both representing ‘civil society’ and also – in many cases – holding considerable technical expertise and knowledge, essential to the effective conservation delivery. Yet the dynamic of relations with governments is interesting! NGOs are not uninterested parties being driven by their own organisational priorities, responsive to their memberships, and typically having developed country perspectives. Their interests can sometimes be limited to a single species (witness the many NGOs concerned with charismatic megafauna such as lions and elephants). In contrast, and especially in democracies, governments have wider responsibilities such as the need to maintain economies, create infrastructure, or alleviate poverty.

The role of NGOs in pushing governments to deliver strong outcomes for the environment is critical and they have a key role, working with government, in practical implementation ‘on the ground’. In the UK, there are typically good relationships between government and NGOs, yet we outline considerable scope for improvement. However, within the UK governments, there can be an attitude that sees environmental NGOs as the problem rather than an essential part of the solution. Which is unnecessary and regrettable.

This book delves into the history of international instruments (such as Agreements, Conventions and legislation), and it is pointed out that fewer new treaties have been made since the early 2000s. Why do you think this is the case?

There are probably two issues at work here. An international landscape of ever proliferating treaties may not be particularly efficient means of engaging the attention of governments. Indeed, one would hope that at some point we see treaties retired following fulfilment of their objectives. Unfortunately, the state of the world is such that we seem far from this eventuality.

It is possible that we already have treaties covering all the relevant issues. However, whilst the ‘big stuff’ (climate change, migratory species, wetlands, trading endangered species) is indeed covered, there are certainly other ‘gaps’ – for example effective regulatory systems for sustainable harvesting of marine resources (to replace the very many completely ineffective fisheries treaties).

Additionally there seems to be an ever-growing culture of legal risk aversion within governments. This, and a retreat to more nationalistic political outlooks in many countries, is not supportive of new treaty-building.

In November, the UK will host the next UN climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow. What do you envisage, or hope, will be the outcome of the conference?

Hoping and envisaging are two very different things! I’ll stick to hoping for now…

It’s human nature to defer difficult decisions: why do today what one can put off till tomorrow? This is especially the case for governments faced with decisions that have difficult political consequences. Essentially the challenge at COP 26 will be to deliver on the aspiration agreed in Paris to hold the global temperature increase to less than 1.5 oC above pre-industrial levels. Unlike the quota-based approach of the earlier Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement aims to build to necessary levels of global emissions reductions from bottom-up – through collective ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDC). After years of deferral of the difficult issue of how to do this, now is finally the time to deliver. Already, there is much diplomatic peer pressure – led especially by UK and USA – to encourage ambitious NDCs. But whether we get to levels that will deliver the Paris Agreement objective remains to be seen. It’s critical that we do as time is running out!

But even if those pledges are made, it will be essential for UK to work with, and support developing countries in particular, in their transition to zero carbon futures – given all the societal issues and political stresses that will arise.

International treaties are sometimes criticised for being ineffective, and this book describes some of their flaws. How valuable have treaties been in nature conservation?

Well, for those involved in any human endeavour, it’s always easy to see how things could be improved, or work better, and international treaties are no different. But despite imperfections, these treaties are critically important in shaping how we do conservation – in particular in establishing collective long-term objectives – goals that stretch beyond the short-termism of national politics.

Yet whilst the legal treaties specify those things that need to be done to deliver their objectives, as important in the long-term is the community of practitioners that gather around a treaty, regularly meeting and working together in order to drive forward its implementation. This includes counter-part government officials in the signatory governments, relevant NGOs, interested academics, and representatives of different but related treaties. All bring something to the table, and it is through their collective support for, say wetland conservation in the case of the Ramsar Convention, that is so important.

This is the first title from NHBS’s new publishing imprint, Biodiversity Press.

International Treaties in Nature Conservation:
A UK Perspective

By: David A Stroud et al.
Paperback | May 2021 | £19.99

 

All prices correct at the time of this article’s publication.

Author Interview with James Lowen: Much Ado About Mothing

James Lowen is an award-winning writer whose work is regularly featured in The Telegraph, BBC Wildlife and Nature’s Home, among other publications. He is also an editor, lecturer, consultant and keen photographer.

From hiking up mountains, to checking his garden moth-trap with his daughter, Much Ado About Mothing is a wonderfully written, engaging account of James’ travels in search of Britain’s rarest and most remarkable moths. James has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions about his latest book below.

Could you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to write Much Ado About Mothing?

I’m a Norfolk-based naturalist and author who has written 12 books, all broadly sitting in the nexus of wildlife, travel and conservation. Two of those books: A Summer of British Wildlife and 52 European Wildlife Weekends, won Travel Guidebook of the Year awards, which was most pleasing and inspired me to both attempt some longer-form writing (Much Ado About Mothing is fundamentally a travel narrative – an exploration of Britain) and take on a more ‘challenging’ topic. And what could be more challenging than championing the very animals (moths) that the general public purports to hate? 

I could readily understand where so many people were coming from in harbouring disdain for moths. For decades, I was also virulently anti-moth, (pre)judging them as uninteresting and usually irritating little brown jobs that remained invisible yet destroyed my suits. However, when a friend showed me a Poplar Hawk-moth, I remember the date precisely: 7 July 2012, my world changed forever.  Wrapped in silver and grizzled with iron filings, this sweetly furry being opened my eyes, brought me to my senses and revolutionised the way that I engage with nature. Over time, I came to appreciate that moths provided a huge variety of incredibly rich tales about ecology and evolution, camouflage and conservation. The more I learned, the more I felt that moths were unduly maligned. So I set out to champion these underdogs through telling their stories in this new book, aiming to challenge people’s preconceptions, correct common misunderstandings and reboot our collective attitudes. 

I really enjoyed reading about you and your daughter’s shared excitement when visiting your moth-trap. How do you think we can best encourage environmental awareness in young people on a broader scale?

First up, my daughter and I came to believe that moths provided surprisingly good ambassadors for natural beauty. This is by dint of their unexpected accessibility (there are probably hundreds of species living covertly around your garden), their unanticipated beauty (many moths ‘out-colour’ our butterflies!) and their welcome placidity (unlike most flighty insects, moths typically sit peaceably, thereby allowing prolonged perusal). To a certain extent, I think the same virtues, when converted into principles, apply to encouraging environmental awareness in youngsters, because there’s no substitute for first-hand experience. Let’s increasingly make wildlife accessible through urban nature reserves: Carlton Marshes on the outskirts of Lowestoft is a good recent example. Let’s showcase the beauty of animals and plants, running events that draw people’s attention to experiences that they would likely otherwise miss. And let’s put particular effort into helping people see non-skittish creatures: a close-up encounter with a ladybird is more likely to achieve a lasting impression than a distant view of a flying bird. 

Your book is filled with extraordinary and surprising facts about moths. Do you have any particular facts or discoveries that you’d like to share with us here?

Gosh, there are so many amazing factual nuggets that it’s hard to pick just a few. For a start, I love moths’ tales of mimicry (clearwings disguise themselves as wasps), camouflage (some moths conceal themselves as desiccated leaves, twigs and even bird poo) and migratory prowess (tiny, fragile creatures flying a thousand-plus miles). There’s wackiness too: china-mark moths, whose caterpillars live underwater; Sandhill Rustic, whose adults can swim underwater; Scarce Silver-lines, which sings from oak trees; various moths that are engaged in an evolutionary arms race with bats; Indian Meal Moth and Wax Moth, whose caterpillars can digest polyethylene and polypropylene (perhaps conceivably hinting at a solution to the global plastics problem?); and even one New World moth whose cells have proved critical for producing the Novavax COVID vaccine.

In terms of personal discoveries, dedicating a year to moths provided a rich vein of opportunities to try and push the boundaries of knowledge, particularly where this helped conservation organisations. Two finds particularly stand out. Helping out on a Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust survey, we came across the first adult female Marsh Moth seen in Britain since 1948; in the intervening seventy years, only males of this quixotic species had been seen! Then, within a mile of my Norwich home, I contrived to track down a new site for one of our most threatened and poorly understood moths, Marsh Carpet. As far as I am aware, the three we caught were the only adults seen anywhere in Britain that year and more than anyone had caught in a single night for years. Even better, this set in train a relationship between Butterfly Conservation and the land manager (Environment Agency), which should help protect the moth here. Both discoveries speak volumes about both how much we have to learn about these wonderful animals and how readily even inexperienced and distinctly amateur moth-ers can make tangible contributions to conservation.

Which aspect of documenting the moths did you find the most challenging?

In a year-long quest to see rare and remarkable moths across the whole of Britain, failure constantly whispers its name. It only takes one thing to go wrong, from bad weather, early flight season or late emergence to inept choice of survey sites and elusive species, for the entire pursuit to fail. With relatively inflexible dates to boot, we really were reliant on everything going right on every trip, which is a high-risk strategy when, for example, driving eleven hours to Scotland’s Ardnamurchan Peninsula to look for a particular sun-loving, day-flying moth. I guess the other thing to emphasise is that whereas moth-trapping in your garden makes for gloriously lazy wildlife-watching, simply flick the switch and let the insects come to you, surveying moths in remote places is contrastingly hard work. After a long drive, often on the back of little sleep, you need to lug heavy generators and a fleet of moth traps up steep slopes or across difficult terrain. And then you need to stay alert all night to make sure you don’t miss anything. I didn’t get much sleep that year…  

You mention in your book that climate change is fluctuating in its effect on moths, with some species thriving in the warmer temperatures, while others are under much more pressure. Having finished your book, do you feel hopeful for the future of lepidoptera?

Yes and no. Britain’s moth ‘balance sheet’ is pretty complicated, as a recent report by Butterfly Conservation shows. Since 1900, we’ve gained nearly 140 new colonists, but perhaps fifty species have gone extinct. Others seem likely to follow: roughly one in eight of our larger moths are nationally threatened or near threatened. Four times as many species are enduring long-term declines as long-term increases and that includes previously very common and widespread ‘generalist’ moths such as Garden Tiger and Garden Dart. Most worryingly of all, one-third fewer moths are flying today than fifty years ago.

On balance, that’s a gloomy picture. But there’s hope too. Among several environmental organisations, Butterfly Conservation is doing ever more to save moths, from an initiative to connect populations of Barberry Carpet to intrepid endeavours to safeguard the UK’s only site for New Forest Burnet. This is underpinned by surging engagement with moths among folk interested in nature. During the first COVID lockdown, retailers sold out of moth traps such was the demand for the kit. In 2020, nearly 75% more people submitted records of moths to Devon’s county recorder than the previous year. There’s definitely a growing wave on enthusiasm and passion for moths, and that’s got to be a very good thing. 

Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Much Ado About Mothing is a book about people as well as place and moths. One of the things I learned during my travels is that many people are deterred from entering the world of moths by the difficulty of identifying them, ‘all the moths look the same’ was a regular refrain. Some brilliant field guides to moths exist, but there seemed to be a demand to complement them with a book that helped newcomers to the hobby easily put a name to our commoner species. The result is my next book,  Britain’s Moths: A Gateway Guide, which came out in September 2021. It aims to be a ‘gateway’ to both the enchanting world of moths and to those more detailed field guides. I hope it inspires more and more people to discover these amazing animals – and then fall for them, just as I have done.


Much Ado About Mothing
By: James Lowen
Paperback