Highland Wildlife Park Highland Wildlife Park News 2021

This week, Highland Wildlife Park are carrying out the biggest ever release to boost Scotland's population of the pine hoverfly Blera fallax. Over 3,000 larvae will be released across three specially-selected sites. This species has not been seen in its adult form in the wild in Britain for over eight years.

More information can be found in the link below:
Thousands of rare insects released in the Cairngorms to boost critically endangered population | Biaza

Must be a lot of hard work involved, as they breed only in small pools of rainwater that collect on the surface of rotten pine stumps. Due to a paucity of such sites naturally, they have created many new artificial ones by cutting suitable hollows in stumps for the water to collect and mimic natural conditions. Then they have to go around introducing all those larvae....
 
How photogenic are the park's tahr, markhor, capercaillie and white-lipped deer?
(These species are the main reason I'm visiting)

You can't miss the Markhor and White-lipped Deer, the Tahr is a bit trickier to spot from memory as it is located in a paddock within the drive-through reserve, but not one which can be driven through itself - so you'd mostly be getting passing views.

The Capercaillie are off-display.
 
The capercaillies are not longer part of the collection. I believe them have been replaced by monals
 
Thank you very much for the information @TeaLovingDave
Shame the capercaillie are off show and the tahr, difficult to view

There's certainly no shortage of very appealing and worthwhile species elsewhere in the collection, of course - and there are a good few species occurring wild in the grounds which are worth keeping an eye out for too.
 
You can't miss the Markhor and White-lipped Deer, the Tahr is a bit trickier to spot from memory as it is located in a paddock within the drive-through reserve, but not one which can be driven through itself - so you'd mostly be getting passing views.

The Capercaillie are off-display.
When I was there in September the Tahr were reached on foot, I think the paddock was near the Scottish wildcat complex. I saw a female capercaillie in that area too
 
  • Like
Reactions: JT
Back
Top