Carnivorous plants return to Lancashire peatland after 100 years

The great sundew, one of the fly-eating plants reintroduced to Winmarleigh Moss. Photograph: Mark Hamblin/2020Vision

After a 100-year absence, ruthless carnivores are flourishing again on a peat bog near Garstang in Lancashire.

The insect-eating great sundew and oblong-leaved sundew are among 17,500 plants being reintroduced to Winmarleigh Moss as part of its restoration by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust.

A sundew capturing some prey. Photograph: Vicky Nall

The plants had been absent from the lowland raised peat bog for a century after it was drained to be managed for game bird shooting.

The region has lost 98% of its lowland peatland, much of it converted to farmland, causing the peat to desiccate and release large quantities of carbon dioxide.

Over the last decade, however, Winmarleigh has been restored by the trust to support rare wildlife and sequester carbon. Peat banks hold water on the site, allowing bog cranberry and spongy sphagnum moss to regrow and fauna including the common lizard and the large heath butterfly to flourish.

With £30,000 of funding from the Lancashire Environmental Fund, Whitecroft Lighting and Natural England, the trust has brought back missing plant species, including the sundews, alongside bog asphodel and white beak-sedge.

The delicate white flowers of white beak-sedge are a vital nectar source for the rare large heath, whose fortunes had declined with the widespread draining of wetland.

The restoration should aid large heath butterflies, whose population had dwindled after the draining of peatland. Photograph: Andy Hankinson

Winmarleigh’s large heaths have recently provided an important donor population for the species to be reintroduced into Greater Manchester, where it had become locally extinct.

Nine hectares (22 acres) of unwanted scrubby vegetation including young birch and willow had to be cleared because they were outcompeting the peatland plants. Then all 17,500 specimens were planted by hand to minimise the disturbance of the bog.

Helen Earnshaw of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s peatlands programme said: “It is exciting to see bog asphodel, white beak-sedge, great sundew and oblong-leaved sundew back on Winmarleigh Moss, as they have been absent for 100 years. These plants are only found on peatlands, and it is important that we do all we can to ensure that they establish and thrive here to add to the biodiversity of the site.”

Conservation scientists hope the reintroduced plants will naturally spread and colonise the surrounding wetlands too.