One of the UK's most trailblazing conservationists talks about his life of working to restore some of the country’s extinct species.
Roy Dennis lives surrounded by his life’s work. Based in Moray, just south of Forres, the ornithologist and wildlife consultant is close to the River Findhorn and Bay, nowadays a hot spot for feeding ospreys, one of the species he helped reintroduce and champion in Scotland. It’s a place he has known since coming to monitor and research ospreys since 1968.
“It’s fantastic. When you’ve translocated ospreys and then one comes back from Africa to where you want it to be, that’s just special,” he says.
The magnificent birds are just one of the species the man regarded as the UK’s pre-eminent conservationist has been behind the reintroduction, relocation and recovery of in Scotland and elsewhere. Along with sea eagles, kites, goldeneye, red squirrels and beavers, they are flourishing as Rewilding becomes more and more popular, not least because of the economic advantages - sea eagles and the tourist pound are worth £5m a year to the Isle of Mull and £3m to Skye. And if Dennis’s hopes are realised, lynxes, wolves and even bears could one day be seen again in Scotland.
Sixty years of Rewilding with the UK's most trailblazing conservationists | The Scotsman
Roy Dennis lives surrounded by his life’s work. Based in Moray, just south of Forres, the ornithologist and wildlife consultant is close to the River Findhorn and Bay, nowadays a hot spot for feeding ospreys, one of the species he helped reintroduce and champion in Scotland. It’s a place he has known since coming to monitor and research ospreys since 1968.
“It’s fantastic. When you’ve translocated ospreys and then one comes back from Africa to where you want it to be, that’s just special,” he says.
The magnificent birds are just one of the species the man regarded as the UK’s pre-eminent conservationist has been behind the reintroduction, relocation and recovery of in Scotland and elsewhere. Along with sea eagles, kites, goldeneye, red squirrels and beavers, they are flourishing as Rewilding becomes more and more popular, not least because of the economic advantages - sea eagles and the tourist pound are worth £5m a year to the Isle of Mull and £3m to Skye. And if Dennis’s hopes are realised, lynxes, wolves and even bears could one day be seen again in Scotland.
Sixty years of Rewilding with the UK's most trailblazing conservationists | The Scotsman