Cumbria Wildlife Trust news
Badger, Raty, Mole and Toad strike out for a wilder future
Sir David Atenborough, Stephen Fry, Catherine Tate, Alison Steadman and Asim Chaudhry have backed a new campaign from The Wildlife Trusts that calls for a wilder future and for nature’s recovery in the UK. The conservationist and actors have starring roles in a new The Wind in the Willows film trailer, which brings to life the 21st century threats facing the characters from the much-loved children’s classic.
Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows just over a hundred years ago. Since then, many of the UK’s wild places and the plants and animals that depend on them have been lost, resulting in the UK becoming one of the most nature- depleted countries in the world. Over the past 10 years there have been numerous reports and studies documenting wildlife declines in the UK.
If you haven’t seen the film – take a look at
www.wildlifetrusts.org/ wilder-future
v Creating a Wilder Future by geting involved in events and volunteering opportunities with Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
Toad is also finding times are very tough. He has lost nearly 70% of his own kind in the last 30 years alone.
The main problems for wildlife in Cumbria are habitat loss, habitat change and climate breakdown. Weather extremes disrupt breeding paterns, threaten life cycles and create food shortages – wildlife cannot always keep up with changes to the seasons and our cold-loving mountain species are at risk as they run out of places to go.
The Wildlife Trusts hope The Wind in the Willows film trailer will inspire people to help by nature by:
v Contacting politicians to call for strong environmental laws that will help nature recover.
Raty is the UK’s most rapidly declining mammal. Water voles are absent from 94% of places they were once prevalent.
v Walking in the pawprints of others and imagine what wildlife needs to survive in your neighbourhood.
v Taking action for wildlife in your garden or local area, working with friends, neighbours – or by geting your local council involved – to create new homes for Toad, Raty, Badger and friends.
6 Cumbrian Wildlife | May 2019
Stephen Fry, President of the Great Fen and the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, who plays Badger, says: “I’ve acted in and narrated The Wind in the Willows in the past but this version is different – it really, really maters. I adore what’s leſt of Britain’s wild and precious places and I’m a passionate supporter of my local Wildlife Trust which is restoring a huge part of the fens for nature. We all need to get behind The Wildlife Trusts, rise up and call for a wilder future – otherwise it’ll be too late to save Toad, Raty and all the residents of the riverbank and beyond.”
President Emeritus of The Wildlife Trusts and narrator of the trailer, Sir David Atenborough says: “It is desperately sad that so much of our country’s wildlife has been lost since Kenneth Grahame wrote his wonderful book The Wind in the Willows. Of all the characters in the book it is hard to know whose descendants have suffered the most. Water voles, toads and Badger’s friends in the book, hedgehogs, have all seen catastrophic declines.
“Raty was a water vole and these animals can’t burrow into river banks covered with sheets of metal. Toads need ponds and wet areas to lay their eggs. Hedgehogs must roam miles to feed at night but oſten hit barriers and struggle to find the messy piles of leaves they need for shelter. None of these creatures can cope with road traffic because they did not evolve to recognise a car as dangerous.
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