A project to remove non-native stoats from Orkney has boosted threatened birds and a species of vole found only on the islands, conservationists said.
The Orkney Native Wildlife Project, which organisers say is the largest stoat removal from an inhabited landscape anywhere in the world, has delivered benefits to hen harriers, rare wading birds and the Orkney vole since it began in 2019, a report published by the RSPB has said.
The stoats – first recorded on the islands in 2010 – are an invasive predator which is not native to the islands, posing a threat to the Orkney vole, an endemic species found nowhere else, and to ground-nesting birds.
