Bath awarded €2.2 million in funding from the EU for satellite transmitter research

University of Bath biodiversity researcher Professor Tamás Székely appeared on ITV West Country Tonight and BBC Points West on Wednesday 19 January along with PhD student John Burnside and Al Dawes, Project Manager from the Great Bustard Group, to demonstrate how the satellite transmitters will work.

The Great Bustard Consortium, comprising the Great Bustard Group, the University of Bath, the RSPB and Natural England, was formed in 2004 to reintroduce the birds which had been extinct in Britain since 1832.

Great bustard chicks have been flown in from Russia and released on Salisbury Plain for the past six years, in an effort to establish a sustainable breeding population.

There are signs that the population is beginning to become established, with two native chicks being successfully fledged last year and the hatching of four more chicks in June.

Now the Consortium is embarking on a five-year €2.2 million project, funded by a LIFE+ grant from the EU to monitor the colony and create a healthy sustainable population.

The Consortium has fitted transmitters to 16 birds that have been reared in Russia and were released on Salisbury Plain this autumn. The transmitters will relay the birds’ locations to the base station in Salisbury so that the bustards’ preferred areas can be monitored for food availability and predator activity.

The research will be used to design optimum feeding patches for the birds, cultivating the right mix of plants and seeds that provide food for the birds and encourage the types of insects that they eat.

Tracé Williams, previously the RSPB’s Chalk Grassland Restoration Manager based in Wiltshire, has been appointed as LIFE Project Manager for the RSPB. She said: “It is so exciting to be working with great bustards and with the staff who have achieved so much already. The LIFE funding will take the project to another level, with more security and a greater ability to gather vital information on the birds.”

Professor Tamás Székely, biodiversity researcher at the University of Bath, said: “The aim of this project is to improve the survival of the birds by monitoring how they interact in their habitat on Salisbury Plain.

“We’ll be tracking the birds’ locations using GPS satellite transmitters to answer fundamental questions such as where do they feed, where do they roost, how do they interact socially with each other and what may kill them.

16 birds have been fitted with GPS transmitters to track their movement. “We’ve monitored populations of these birds extensively in Russia, but this will be the first time we’ve collected detailed data on bustard populations in a UK habitat.”

Bath-based PhD student John Burnside added: “We’re particularly interested in how the birds will behave in their new habitat. Great bustards learn a lot of their behaviour from each other and so the newly introduced chicks have to learn quickly how to feed, survive and avoid predators without the help of their mother.

“As the population becomes established, their survival chances should hopefully get better – this project will be looking into ways of improving release methods and the survival of the birds in the long term.”

David Waters, Founder and Director of the Great Bustard Group, said: “We’re really excited about this new project.

“Since its inception in 2004, the Great Bustard Group has muddled through with a hand-to-mouth existence. Before the grant, we were always struggling to find £10 or £20 to put diesel in the old Land Rover; now we have the chance to give this project real wings.

“The funding will provide a properly-resourced project, with four new posts, new monitoring equipment and even the possibility of a second release site.”

The LIFE+ project brings the Great Bustard Project into mainstream conservation, with Natural England, the government agency for nature conservation in England, as a partner. Ian Carter of Natural England welcomed the new partnership. He said: “The LIFE funding will clearly put the project on a much firmer footing and ensure that key areas such as monitoring of the released birds are adequately resourced. We are set to learn a great deal more about this species over the coming five years!”

The great bustard is one of a number of species that the RSPB is working in partnership to restore to our countryside. RSPB species recovery officer, Leigh Lock said: “Great bustards last bred in the UK in 1832, and the RSPB is delighted to be working with partners to re-establish them as breeding birds after an absence of 170 years.

“We also hope that the great bustard project will help promote the restoration of a lost landscape in southern England that will support some of our other rare and threatened wildlife.”