A list of acknowledgement to the organisations and individuals who have helped with this work including: Natural England, National Trust, RSPB, Dorset Bird Club, Paradise Park, Durrell, Wildwood, and Kent Wildlife Trust.

6/6 #BOUsci24 #POSTER2
If proven successful, this methodology could be used to not only to accelerate further range recovery elsewhere but also to reinforce declining populations around the British Isles whilst helping to improve their genetic diversity.

A photo of a grassy coastal slope with strip lynchets on the Purbeck coast where released Chough will hopefully be seen in the future.

5/6 #BOUsci24 #POSTER2
So @harbourbirds.bsky.social supported by the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation & Natural England propose a reintroduction to Purbeck using a new ‘wild-take’ translocation methodology, which favours genetic diversity, natural behaviours, and minimises costs & time requirements.

A map showing a modelled expansion of the Cornish Chough population towards Dorset over more than 40 years demonstrating the slow nature of the process.

4/6 #BOUsci24 #POSTER2
However spatial expansion of the Cornish population is slowed by low rates of dispersal and a lack of contiguous high-quality habitat along the South coast. It’s therefore projected to take between 34-80+ years for natural recolonisation to occur.

A graph showing an exponential increase in the Cornish Chough population from 1 pair and their chicks in 2002, to 25 pairs and more than 60 chicks in 2022.

3/6 #BOUsci24 #POSTER2
The closest extant population in Cornwall has been growing exponentially since a chance recolonisation event in 2001, and could act as a potential source of dispersing individuals for recolonisation of the Dorset coast in the future.

A map showing 10,703 hectares of potential Chough foraging habitat in South Purbeck and Portland, including 2,550 hectares of optimal foraging habitat (where the sward height is below 5 centimetres) mostly concentrated close to the Purbeck coast.

2/6 #BOUsci24 #POSTER2
Chough are now a protected species, and a return to more traditional management practices on the Purbeck coast by landowners such as the National Trust and their tenant farmers means that there is now extensive Chough foraging habitat available in Dorset once again.