NATURE
lochs, glens and Scots pines! Then it was on to the train south and into the sweltering heat and humidity of southern Virginia. Here I re-visited the long-running bald eagle re- covery project on the James and York Rivers which are now almost at ‘ESP’ (Eagle Satura- tion Point). An incredible from a low of just 30 pairs in the 1970s to a staggering 730 pairs today. I wonder how their close cousins, the white-tailed eagles, will now fare over a similar time frame in the UK? The descendants of the per- egrine falcons which I’d helped to reintroduce to the eastern shore of Virginia in 1981 were also thriv-
ing.
So far, so good.
The condors in Arizona and California are doing well too but progress sometimes seems painfully slow and the project continues to be hampered by toxic lead in the environment. The condors scavenge on hunted deer and coyote car- casses and ingest lead frag- ments from the bullets. It was quite a moment for me to see an active condor nest cave.
And to watch an adult condor soaring over the North Rim of the Grand Canyon - well, it simply takes your breath away. For once, the word ‘awesome’ summed it all up. But it was the visit to Yellow- stone National Park in Wyo- ming and Montana that provid- ed the biggest surprise of the sabbatical. My target species there has been the focus of one of the most famous and controversial reintroduction projects in the history of wild- life conservation. Wolves bring out the best - and worst - in human nature. Grey (or timber) wolves were, like white-tailed eagles, persecuted re- lentlessly across their range. They be- came extinct in most states. At one point even the govern- ment
had a policy of eradicating them from Yellowstone itself. How times change. In 1995 and 1996, wolves from Can- ada were caught, tranquilised, transported, acclimatised and eventually released into Yel- lowstone. The top predator was back and the whole eco- system started to come back into balance: elk numbers dropped, aspen recovered, beavers returned to the riv- ers, more ponds were created and more wildfowl arrived. But just as we’ve found on Mull, one of the big bonuses of these projects has been the increase in wildlife tourism. Wolf and eagle watchers are, by and large, very similar folks. They spend locally, they return over and over and they usually behave!
And so the sabbatical con- cluded. Where did those four weeks go? There are lifetime memories to treasure, old acquaintances renewed and new contacts made, many lessons learned for a re-energised and fresh look at work back home. But most of all, just a cel- ebration of all the successful reintroduction projects which colleagues from other wildlife agencies and the RSPB have been part of over many years, righting some of the wrongs of the past.
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