Blog | Conservation Chat UK

Conservation Chat UK LTD

Company Number 12390719

27 Shorton Valley Road

Paignton

TQ3 1RB

Conservation Chat UK LTD

Company Number 12390719

27 Shorton Valley Road

Paignton

TQ3 1RB

Conservation Chat UK LTD

Company Number 12390719

27 Shorton Valley Road

Paignton

TQ3 1RB

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Can we really bring nature back?

May 22, 2020
2 min

Can we really bring nature back?

While the devastating effects of the world pandemic have been felt harshly worldwide, our so often battered and depleted planet, has revelled in a much-needed break. In fact, it seemed for the briefest of months or two, that perhaps the peace and reprieve from constant pollution and exploitation, could stay for a little while longer. It seems we have all been connecting to nature throughout these troubling times. We have found solace and comfort in our local green spaces and

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Turning down the dial on nature destruction

May 5, 2020
4 min

Turning down the dial on nature destruction

The usual world is a constant raucous of noise. We live undeniably, in a 24hr world, where the hustle and bustle of production and consumerism can all be heard competing in the quest for money making bliss. But in one of the most unprecedented events to occur worldwide, mother nature has pressed pause on the world’s sound system. The hum of traffic has slowed, whole industries have shut, and engines have been switched off. If you have been listening closely, you might just ha

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Deforestation

Apr 18, 2020
3 min

Deforestation

Deforestation. A term guaranteed to get you welling up at the thought of homeless orangutans and tigers with nowhere left to roam, or the palm oil advert that made you shed a tear that one time. Of course, these crucial issues and majestic creatures deserve our utmost conservation efforts. But let’s “deforest” the issue and take a look at what this term means for our British wildlife. Deforestation is the overall loss of areas of woodland. Large areas of forest are cleared at

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Connection is everything

Apr 8, 2020
4 min

Connection is everything

Why we need connectivity now more than ever. Connectivity. You may have heard this word being bandied about a lot recently whilst we all settle in for endless video calls and meetings with work colleagues and family members, fragmented across the UK (or indeed the world). But today we are discussing this term as one of the most important conservation concepts, landscape connectivity. As the human population skyrockets, natural habitats are transformed into masses of urban jun

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Seven weeks with the Sea Watch Foundation

Leah Freshwater

Apr 4, 2020
3 min

Seven weeks with the Sea Watch Foundation

A personal account of a Sea Watch Foundation intern Last year, I spent an amazing 7 weeks interning with Sea Watch Foundation studying bottlenose dolphins in New Quay, West Wales. The Sea Watch Foundation is a national charity dedicated to the conservation of whales, dolphins and porpoises. The Cardigan Bay Monitoring Project is their flagship study, which uses a combination of land-based surveys, line transects and photo identification to collect data on the cetaceans within

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How does a cage encourage the success of a species?

Mar 30, 2020
3 min

How does a cage encourage the success of a species?

We're not the only species on lockdown I was scrolling through my local ‘Spotted’ Facebook page and saw someone using an image of a seal in a cage to express how they are feeling right now during lockdown, and it got me thinking, can we as humans now relate on a personal level with wild animals kept in captivity due to the covid-19 pandemic? Granted, a global pandemic is not the same as wild animals kept in zoos from a scientific point of view, but the result is the same. Cou

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The garden ecologist; surveying for bats from the comfort of your home!

Mar 26, 2020
2 min

The garden ecologist; surveying for bats from the comfort of your home!

With peak bat surveying season just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to think about getting involved with bat monitoring. Anyone can get involved in surveying for bats, and you can even carry one out with minimal equipment. If you’re lucky enough to have a garden while we are on lock-down, why not head out just before sunset and see what you can spot? If you are just popping out to see what bats might be frequenting your garden, grab a blanket and begin gazing. Even w

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This is not a drill

Conservation Chat UK

Jan 3, 2020
1 min

This is not a drill

This is not a drill. We have to act now. Australia is burning. California is burning. The UK is flooding. The Maldives are sinking. The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching. Antarctica will be reduced to an ice cube. It isn't enough to pick up a few crisp wrappers off the beach anymore. Yes, this is incredibly important and helpful to the environment, but it will not stop the catastrophic effects of climate change. We need a drastic change and we all need to do our bit, immediatel

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Partnerships for the planet

Conservation Chat UK

Jan 1, 2020
2 min

Partnerships for the planet

There has never been a more important time to work together to address the challenges faced by us all. Some of these include global and local climate change, habitat degradation and species extinction. Far too often we see individuals and organizations competing against each other to achieve the same goals. Unfortunately, within the field of nature conservation, ego can sometimes rule and obstruct the goal of protecting nature. At Conservation Chat UK we want to do things dif

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A Sustainable Merry Christmas

Conservation Chat UK

Dec 8, 2019
3 min

A Sustainable Merry Christmas

We love the festive season, but we are also aware that it can be an incredibly wasteful time of year. Wrapping paper, sellotape and plastic bows are often used only once and we spend hundreds of pounds on plastic toys and gadgets that are often shoved to the back of a drawer, never to be seen again. So what can we do this Christmas to spread joy but avoid a huge trail of waste? We've come up with some ideas for a sustainable Christmas season: 1. Gift experiences, not objects.

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My time on the Voyager

Nov 4, 2019
2 min

My time on the Voyager

As part of my dissertation research, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend 3 months on-board “Voyager”, a responsible whale-watching vessel based in Baltimore, West Cork, Ireland. I worked alongside Dr Nicholas Slocum from Whale Watch West Cork, mapping the distribution of cetaceans in local coastal waters. During the summer months, Irish waters become home to a range of feeding cetaceans, including odontocetes (toothed whales) such as short-beaked common dolphi

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My Time with the UK Blue Shark Project

Oct 4, 2019
3 min

My Time with the UK Blue Shark Project

In the summer of 2018, I was approached by Dr Andrea Gaion and offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to join him as part of the UK Blue Shark Project. I said yes without hesitation. We would be heading to Penzance harbour and travelling 12 nautical miles out to sea to find the fascinating blue shark (Prionace glauca). Blue sharks are one of the many shark species that visit our coastlines and are known well for their cobalt blue scales and puppy-dog faces. They are relativ

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Life in the undergrowth

Conservation Chat UK

Aug 17, 2019
4 min

Life in the undergrowth

By Alex Barton Having and tending to a garden has done wonders for me - I would be bereft if it were suddenly taken away. I never gave gardening a second thought until we bought our first home with its own little plot 6 years ago, and even then I didn't think about it until we finally had the overgrown garden levelled and landscaped in October 2017. We'd saved really hard to get this done, and it dawned on me that this would be money wasted if I couldn't now look after the

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Say NO to tiger tourism!

Jul 7, 2019
2 min

Say NO to tiger tourism!

It’s the time of year when the kids have finished school and you can finally pack your suitcase and head somewhere new and exciting. Where are you going on holiday this year? Are you having a one-week chill session in Tenerife, an action-packed adventure holiday backpacking across South America or a relaxing beach holiday in a tropical Eden like Thailand? No matter where you go, it is likely that wildlife tourism will be advertised and offered to you for incredibly cheap pric

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Ex-poachers and villagers help to save endangered hornbill species

Conservation Chat UK

Jul 7, 2019
2 min

Ex-poachers and villagers help to save endangered hornbill species

Hornbill birds in the Khao Yai and Budo-Sungai Pai National Parks (Thailand) have been experiencing higher fledgling rates than before! The reason for this rise in numbers is down to community conservation; the act of involving local communities in the protection of species sharing their environment. Aka, community engagement! Great, wreathed, helmeted, bushy-crested, rhinoceros, white-crowned, and oriental pied hornbills were under great threat from poaching. They were also

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Help the hedgehog!

Jun 16, 2019
2 min

Help the hedgehog!

The European hedgehog is a truly iconic British species and one that many people know and love. Unfortunately, our prickly little friends are suffering from a variety of different threats. These include: - Road collisions. - Loss of habitat and a reduced ability to find new habitat. - Drowning in ponds. - Burning to death in bonfires. - Injuries caused by garden equipment. - Poisoned by toxic pesticides such as slug pellets. - Injury and/or suffocation from litter such as pla

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The persecution of an iconic British species

Conservation Chat UK

Jun 9, 2019
2 min

The persecution of an iconic British species

If you ask the person next to you the one thing they associate herring gulls with, what do you think it would be? They will most likely respond by saying that they are pests, dangerous or noisy and cause chaos in public spaces. Many will say “they belong at sea, why don’t they go back to where they came from!?”. The truth is that herring gulls dominate our seafronts and rooftops because we have vastly reduced their food supply. Unsustainable fishing practices have left wild f

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Rewilding my garden

Jun 3, 2019
3 min

Rewilding my garden

I really love the ‘Garden watch’ campaign launched by BBC Spring Watch and really believe that we can make a massive difference on our doorstep. Nature is in desperate need of help, and our own lives not only depend on a healthy environment but are enriched by it. This is a personal reflection of how I have rewilded my own garden over the last couple of years. When I bought my house, the long, multi-levelled garden, lined with trees, is what sold it to me, I had always dreame

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Trouble in paradise

Conservation Chat UK

Jun 2, 2019
2 min

Trouble in paradise

The lionfish is an outstandingly beautiful predatory fish native to the warm waters of the Indo-Pacific, but these distinctive fish have found their way into non-native territory and are wreaking havoc. Lionfish have been introduced to the Western Central Atlantic, Caribbean Region and Gulf of Mexico by man (accidental and non-accidental). The first recorded sighting of invasive lionfish was off the coast of Florida in the 1980s and have since become an established and very s

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Confessions of an animal conservation student

May 18, 2019
2 min

Confessions of an animal conservation student

I have to admit, there have been many times over the past 4 years where I have broken down in a heap on the floor and asked myself “why am I doing this?”. The study of animal conservation science will expose you to terrible truths, some of which leave you flummoxed and wondering how the hell you can ever make a difference. Our planet is warming, our oceans are dissolving the animals that live within them, we over-hunt, exploit and trade beautiful and rare exotic animals, we t

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