In the early part of the 21st century, we reached the point where it just wasn't physically possible to visit all the nests, because the program was being so successful. Will - It's difficult to estimate the numbers now. It's not just been a success, it's a roaring success really! ![]() Harry - And today, as we've been saying, it has been a success. And so in the following years, a large number were introduced together. They tend to go to areas where there's a large population. It might be that they were genetically programmed to migrate as their parents had been, or it might even be that the red kites are very social birds. And in the early years of the Chilterns population, some of the birds left after being introduced and didn't come back and it's not entirely clear why. So, some of the birds in Sweden will naturally migrate to Spain in the winter and then fly back to Sweden for the breeding season. Will - Yes the red kites are fascinating species found over a huge area and some of the birds are migratory. Harry - There was a hiccup along the way though, wasn't there? Because I know that the Swedish population had different ideas in mind to what the conservationists had. And also that the offspring were fledging and were themselves making new nests. ![]() And that was pretty clear fairly early on in the Chilterns population that the birds were successfully breeding. And so you are not taking birds away from other parts of the world. So the population will have enough offspring that you don't need to introduce any more birds. Will - I guess the definition of success is the population is self-sustaining. Harry - And at what point, as a conservationist, do you start to say this - being the first attempt to reintroduce a species in the UK - when do you say it is a success? You know, are there points along that five year period where you start to get worried that you've chosen the wrong location or that this just isn't gonna work? In both Scotland and in England, 93 birds were introduced over a five year period from 1989 to 1994. And originally birds were introduced from Sweden and then later on, birds were introduced from Spain. One in Scotland, in the Black Isle, and one in the Chilterns, and the Chilterns was the project I was involved in. So a lot of work was done with local landowners and people who lived in the area to make sure the birds would be welcome. And the really important thing was to make sure the birds would thrive where they were introduced. Will - So, in 1989, a number of sites were identified, first of all. When was the reintroduction program introduced? So, by the middle of the 19th century, the birds were extinct in England, extinct in Scotland, and were only found in a small population in Wales, which in the 1930s was believed to only include possibly a dozen individual red kites in the whole of the UK. And the worry was, has the environment changed too much? Are the reasons they went extinct still there? Is it a waste of resources? And would we be better off focusing attention on conserving the birds where they already live? The reason it went extinct was persecution. The project involved bringing birds from an area in the wild where they were thriving, but there were still concerns about that conservation and releasing them to an area where they hadn't lived for over a hundred years. I mean, these were birds that were globally endangered. It's one of the first successful reintroductions in the UK and, at the time, it was considered quite risky. ![]() Harry - And obviously we're talking about reintroductions and this one's quite special, isn't it? The red kites fly by catching the wind and so they're constantly twisting and adjusting their wings and their tail, which keeps them airborne with very little effort, which makes them very efficient at flying large distances, looking for their food. It's got a wingspan of over a meter and it's got a very distinctive forked tail. It's one of the largest birds you'll find in the UK. Harry Lewis spoke to Will Dixon, who did his PhD as part of the team involved in returning red kites to British skies in the 1990s, and he told him how to spot one… Well let’s look skyward for one very visible example of reintroduction successfully in action, which is the tale of the red kite.
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