H24 Garrison Road
Hatston
Kirkwall
Orkney
KW15 1GN
The Orkney Native Wildlife Project protects the precious Orkney native wildlife by addressing the threat it faces from invasive, non-native stoats.
The project is a partnership between RSPB Scotland, NatureScot and Orkney Islands Council with generous support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the EU’s LIFE programme.
This ambitious partnership project is the first stoat eradication conducted in the northern hemisphere, the largest island stoat eradication in the world to date, and the first of its size on fully inhabited islands.
Everyone can help by telling us when they have spotted a stoat on our website. We have a handy guide anyone can download which explains how you can identify a stoat on our website too. The sooner you tell us when and where you have seen a stoat the greater our chances of catching it and protecting our native wildlife. Stoats are voracious, skilled hunters and prey on the eggs of ground-nesting birds, their chicks and the Orkney vole - a subspecies found no where else but here.
The project staff work alongside our volunteers, local communities, tourism groups, schools, farmers, and land managers to provide lasting benefits for the wildlife, people, and economy of these unique islands.
The project will also provide a lasting legacy by developing biosecurity plans to ensure stoats don't spread to other Orkney islands, as well as preventing them (once removed) from returning to Orkney in the future.