Conservation Science

We are currently working with Nottingham Trent University, with a PhD student, Katherine Finglan and her supervisors Samanthat Bremner-Harrison, Samantha Ward, Andy Bates and Craig Shuttleworth. 

This research is focused on understanding how red squirrels use the urban environment and the influence this has on their ecology. This research will be pivotal in devising a beneficial conservation strategy. This research is conducted part time with an aim to finish in 2021.

This study was carried out with The University of Essex, looking at the impacts that volunteering with The Wildlife Trusts could have on volunteer's mental health and wellbeing.

The research assessed 139 participants' attitudes, behaviour and mental wellbeing over the course of 12 weeks, during which they took part in nature conservation volunteering activities. Most of the participants were attending projects because of a health or social need.

In summary the research showed that there was a positive impact on two-thirds of participants engaging Wildlife Trust projects, with 95% of participants who were identified as having poor levels of mental health at the start, reported an improvement in 6 weeks as well as increasing their pro-environmental behaviours. Download the summary or full report below.

Our Myplace project is an innovative partnership between ourselves and Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust. Myplace submitted data towards this research project and has lots of opportunities for people to get involved. Head over to their page to find out more here.

My Back Yard was a research project funded by NERC and carried out by Manchester Metropolitan University and The University of Leicester, in collaboration with a range of partners including ourselves, Manchester City Council, Manchester City of Trees, Southway Housing Trust, The Mersey Forest and Countryscape.

The research focused on a Manchester-wide questionnaire, which asked residents a range of questions around the greenness of their garden. Individually a domestic garden may appear insignificant but collectively gardens make up a significant proportion of the green space within a city.

The need for the study developed from inaccurate simulations about the city's ability to cope with extreme weather, misidentification of areas that need public green spaces, misguided action on the ground and residents undervaluing their domestic gardens.

The research found that actually 49% of Manchester's land cover encompassed green and blue infrastructure, a drop of 10% of what had been previously recorded. Alongside this 20% of this green and blue infrastructure was made up of gardens. This research has led to a number of outputs from project partners, and ours in particular led to the development of My Wild City. A communications campaign aimed at engaging people with their gardens to enhance wildlife corridors and populations from Higher Blackley to Woodhouse Park.

During 2016, we worked with Liverpool John Moores University, alongside Dr Javier Del barco-Trillo and student Anna Starkley for her BSc. (Hons) in Zoology.

The research conducted investigated the effects of supplementary feeding on our population of red squirrels. Feeders were installed within a protected woodland free from grey squirrels, either containing food (full feeders) or no food (empty feeders), and squirrel abundance was recorded both before and after feeding was recorded at each feeder.

The findings are currently under review for publication.

During 2014, we worked with The University of Liverpool alongside Julian Chantrey, a Veterinary Pathologist and Timothy Dale, a PhD student over three years. Their research involved increasing knowledge on the red squirrel survival rates after squirrel pox outbreaks and modes of transmission of the pox. This was vital information for the conservation of the species. The findings of this research can be downloaded below.