The John Muir Trust will be giving evidence to a Public Local Inquiry (PLI) into the Crossburns wind farm, which will be heard this week (15-18 November) in Aberfeldy Town Hall. The PLI was triggered when Perth & Kinross Council unanimously agreed to oppose the 25-turbine development on the hills above Aberfeldy close to the route of the Rob Roy Way. The JMT also lodged an objection because of the cumulative impact of wind turbines on the Highland Perthshire landscape, whose wild qualities attract visitors from all over the world. With two major wind farms already spread across the area…

An innovative project to boost the number of the UK’s red squirrels by relocating individuals to woodlands they cannot reach by themselves is taking a major step forward this month. Conservation experts at the charity Trees for Life will carefully relocate red squirrels from Inverness-shire and Moray to forests near Kinlochewe and at Plockton, where the species is currently absent despite there being suitable habitat for squirrels. The Red Squirrel Reintroduction Project aims to establish 10 new populations in the northwest Highlands, significantly increasing both the numbers and range of the red squirrel in the UK. “We are giving red…

Reintroduced red kite numbers are on the rise throughout much of Scotland, with at least 283 pairs in 2015, but a new Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) report has found the population in the North Scotland continues to grow more slowly than other reintroduced populations. The report updates earlier work and suggests that illegal killing is still considered to be the main reason red kite numbers are not higher in North Scotland. The report, commissioned by SNH and carried out by RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science, found that, although not at risk of decline, the red kite population in North Scotland…