Project Wolf – a unique new conservation programme in which volunteers replicate the natural disturbance effects of Scotland’s extinct predators – has been launched in the Highlands near Loch Ness by Trees for Life. Project Wolf is being trialled at the charity’s acclaimed Dundreggan Conservation Estate in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire, lying to the west of Loch Ness. It involves volunteers operating in teams of three ‘wolves’, regularly walking through the ancient woodlands during the night and at dusk and dawn, creating disturbance that will keep deer on the move. “Grazing pressure on young trees by too many deer, today undisturbed by…

The nesting pair of ospreys at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Loch of the Lowes Wildlife Reserve near Dunkeld have hatched their third chick of 2016. Volunteers at the reserve got their first glimpse of the chick just after 1pm today (Monday 23 May). It follows the first chick which hatched on the afternoon of Wednesday 18 May and the second, which came in the early hours of Friday 20 May. The nesting ospreys have continued to bring back salmon and trout to feed their growing brood. The webcam trained on the nest and supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery…