Official Launch of Comma Project

Poetry workshop

Wildflower planting at New Ferry Butterfly Park

2012 is the 50th Birthday of Cheshire Wildlife Trust. It is also Wirral Borough's "Year of Coast and Countryside". To celebrate both, Wirral Wildlife set up 5 wildflower plantings to make a lasting contribution to our local area.

On March 11th scabious, harebell, yarrow and meadow cranesbill were planted on the lime meadow at New Ferry Butterfly Park.

The next wild flower planting is on April 14th at 2pm in Birkenhead Park.

Plant cowslips, bugle, ragged robin and marsh woundwort in the wild flower meadow at Birkenhead park.

Come along to Birkenhead Park Visitor Centre at 2pm.

Please book to be sure of your plants, either with the Rangers (0151 652 5197, or email) or with Wirral Wildlife (0151 327 5923 or email).  Bring a trowel if you have one!

Balsam bashing

Click on the poster to view it at a larger size

Comma Project is coming to New Ferry

The following post is taken from Carol Ramsay's New Ferry Butterfly Park Facebook page: www.facebook.com/NewFerryButterflyPark 

We will be signing the lease on our new shop in New Ferry next week and our first artist Gerald Curtis will arrive on site and be working from 2nd April-26th April. Very exciting!

If anyone would like to volunteer part time or even the odd day to work in the visitor centre part of the shop, meeting and greeting visitors and telling people what the project and the Butterfly Park itself is all about please email Carol.

Keep watching this space for more details and help spread the word... The Comma Project is coming to New Ferry!

Badger Vaccination

Cheshire Wildlife Trust to vaccinate badgers against bovine TB

Cheshire Wildlife Trust will begin a badger vaccination programme at one of its sites in the region this autumn.

The move comes in response to Defra’s decision to run trial badger culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset, and will take place at the same time as a vaccination programme in neighbouring Shropshire, on a Shropshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve.

The Trust does not consider culling badgers to be an effective method of tackling bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and considers that vaccination of badgers against bTB, along with improved bio-security measures, will help the long term disease control.

On the Cheshire and Shropshire sites this autumn, badgers will be cage trapped and injected with BadgerBCG vaccine. The programme will continue for five years.

“Vaccination offers a way of tackling the disease without any associated negative impact such as the perturbation effect that is bought about by culling” said Helen Trotman, who will be carrying out the vaccinations in Shropshire.

The ‘perturbation effect’ suggests that following a cull, any remaining infected badgers may disperse from their home territory and spread the disease across a wider area than initially affected.

“The Government has culled badgers for the past 30 years without any significant reduction of TB incidence in cattle. This is a complex problem that will not easily be solved but the Trust wants to do something positive and we know vaccination can significantly reduce the disease burden in badgers.” added Helen Trotman.

Charlotte Harris, director of conservation at Cheshire Wildlife Trust added: “As land managers with cattle at the heart of our conservation grazing strategy throughout the Cheshire region, the vaccination programme gives us a unique opportunity to explore how we can tackle this disease in a scientifically-led and sustainable way”.

The Wildlife Trusts are conscious of the impact this disease has on the farming community and the need to put the right measures in place to tackle it. To raise awareness of the difficulties of controlling bTB, Shropshire Wildlife Trust will host a forum in May where the latest policy and research will be presented to invited groups.

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust was the first voluntary organisation to pay for the deployment of the BadgerBCG vaccine in 2011. In addition, Somerset and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trusts will vaccinate in the trial cull areas.

To find out more about Bovine TB and badgers see www.wildlifetrusts.org/badgers-and-bovineTB

Garden Party - Volunteers Needed

As part of Cheshire Wildlife Trust's 50th anniversary celebrations they will be hosting a Garden Open Day at Eaton Hall, Chester on Sunday 29th July by kind permission of the Duke of Westminster. Past events  have attracted in the region of 4000 visitors, and have proved to be very successful in raising money for charity. 

Due to the scale of the event Cheshire Wildlife Trust will require a large number of volunteers to make the day successful.  The key areas for volunteers are collecting money and issuing tickets on each of the gates and manning the two refreshment areas.  The event opens at 10.30 am to the public and closes at 5.00 pm. Therefore, volunteers could do 3 hours and then be relieved so that they can then enjoy walking around the gardens.  Would you be interested in supporting one of these areas? 

Please email Tracey at Cheshire Wildlife Trust if you would like to help.