Project Manager of Red Squirrels in Scotland Project

Project Surveyor – Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels

£18k - £20k pa, depending on experience

Location flexible but Tayside/Angus preferred

Fixed term for 6 months

35 hours per week

The Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scottish Natural Heritage, Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Rural Property and Business Association, with support from local squirrel groups across Scotland, are implementing a major project to help conserve Scotland's red squirrel population.

Employed by SWT, the successful candidate will work in concert with Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels Project Officers in Aberdeenshire, Tayside and Argyll & Trossachs to complete the setting up of the project’s 100 surveys in named tetrads across the project area. He/she will be responsible for ensuring that all surveys are completed and reported on schedule, including liaising with and supporting volunteer surveyors, and will include sightings transect surveys and feeder-box (hair identification) monitoring.

Applicants will hold a degree in or equivalent vocational qualification in ecology, countryside management or related discipline. He/she will be experienced in carrying out standardised wildlife surveying, preferably squirrel surveying, and with firm grasp of scientific method and report writing.

Experience of working with the public, private landowners, conservation agencies and volunteer groups along with excellent organisational skills are essential.

This post requires working in remote locations in challenging environments. A project vehicle will be provided therefore a current driving licence is essential.

For further information and an application form see http://www.swt.org.uk/info/jobs,

email , or phone 0131 312 7765.

Closing date for applications, Tuesday 16th March; interviews week beginning 21st March.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust is committed to equal opportunities.

Job Title

Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels Surveyor

(Fixed term: March- September)

Location Of Job / Ranging over Aberdeenshire and Tayside, and parts of Stirling.
SWT HQ Edinburgh-based or Home Office
Dept/Region / Conservation
Reporting To / SWT’s Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels Project Manager

Overall Purpose of the Job

Implement the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels (SSRS) project’s 2011 scheme of surveys to monitor red and grey squirrel distributions, and to obtain an index of squirrel densities in selected areas.

Organisation

The Surveyor will be line-managed by SWT’s Project Manager of the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project, but will work closely with the SSRS Project Officers from North East Scotland and Tayside and their volunteer surveyors.

Main Duties

Tetrad Surveys
·  Complete the setting up of the project’s 100 surveys in named tetrads (2x2km squares) across the SSRS project area in concert with the Project Officers. This includes sightings transect surveys and feeder-box (hair identification) monitoring.
Grey Squirrel Control Monitoring
·  Assist project staff to complete a small number of intensive transect surveys to assess the effects of grey squirrel trapping on red and grey squirrel numbers in the area.
Survey Co-ordination
·  Liaise with Project Officers to allocate personnel (staff or volunteers) to carry out surveys and make sure all surveys are completed and reported on schedule, including liaising with and supporting volunteer surveyors.
·  Carry out and complete any surveys that cannot be done by Project staff or volunteers.
·  Report survey results on Excel recording sheets provided by the SSRS project and submit to the SWT Data Officer for collation.
·  Produce a short report on the collated data, summarising the findings.

Personal Specification

Essential Experience and Qualification
·  Degree in or equivalent vocational qualification in ecology, countryside management or related discipline
·  Experienced in carrying out standardised wildlife surveying, preferably squirrel surveying, with firm grasp of scientific method.
Essential Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
·  Full, clean driving licence.
·  Knowledge of wildlife ecology and conservation, particularly relating to mammalian conservation.
·  Excellent field skills with experience of reading field signs of mammals or birds.
·  Highly organised with excellent time-management skills.
·  Highly motivated and able to work on own initiative and manage own time-table with minimal supervision with the drive and focus to see that project targets on data collection are met.
·  Understanding of estate management, gamekeeping and shoot management, and able to work in harmony with the needs of the land management in areas where surveys are located.
·  Ability to communicate with other staff, landowners, gamekeepers and estate staff, foresters, etc.
·  Willing to travel and spend time away from home and from the base office.
·  Some early morning and weekend working will be required.
Advantageous
·  A working knowledge of Scottish wildlife and environment issues
·  Experience of working with countryside rangers, gamekeepers or similar
·  Experience of working with community groups and volunteers.
Date / 22/02/11
Author / Mel Tonkin
Position / Project Manager Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels

PROJECT SUMMARY

The red squirrel is a conservation priority for the UK and Scotland. It is imperative to secure red squirrel populations in all the areas they currently occupy, whilst encouraging expansion into some of their former range. This project begins this process. Within the timescale of this project we aim to complete the first phase of this by arresting population contraction in large areas of North East Scotland and upland Scotland north of the central belt, developing the methodology and mechanisms by which red squirrels can be protected more widely, providing a basis for successful expansion in the future. This project will run alongside (and have close links with) the established Red Squirrels in South Scotland project to provide a targeted national programme.

The rapid and continuing loss of red squirrels throughout much of the UK has been well documented. It is clear that the chief threat to the red squirrel is competition with the more robust non-native grey squirrel, including the fatal disease, squirrelpox, carried and spread by grey squirrels to red squirrels. The virus causing squirrelpox has been detected in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries-shire, and it is imperative to stop it from spreading further if red squirrels are to survive on the Scottish mainland into the latter half of the century. At the same time it is necessary to secure the red squirrel in areas such as Aberdeenshire, the Highlands, northern Tayside and Argyll where there are currently no grey squirrels present, and to work to improve conditions for viable red squirrel populations right across Scotland.

An essential part of the project is to review progress and evaluate the role of this type of conservation action in protecting red squirrels over the longer-term. The outcomes of the project will influence the future scale and direction of efforts to retain healthy populations of red squirrels across a large part of Scotland.

The current project is in year 3 of a three-year phase and is a partnership project between Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT), Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) and Scottish Rural Property & Business Association (SRPBA). SWT employs a project team consisting of a Project Manager, Red Squirrel Project Officers and Grey Squirrel Control Officers. A steering group comprising the above partners oversees delivery and reporting of the project.

PROJECT VISION

Thriving red squirrel populations in the Highlands, Argyll, North-East Scotland and northern Tayside that are protected from replacement by grey squirrels and enhanced red squirrel populations across Scotland.

THREE-YEAR PROJECT AIMS

·  To put in place the mechanisms, structures and organisational co-operation to sustain effective red squirrel protection for the Highlands, Argyll, North-East Scotland and northern Tayside;

·  To improve access of private and public woodland owners to information and advice on best practice in woodland and forestry management for red squirrels;

·  To increase the involvement of private and public foresters and woodland owners in conservation efforts for red squirrels;

·  To increase our knowledge of the distribution of squirrels in Scotland and maintain a process for recording and disseminating this information;

·  To increase community engagement in red squirrel conservation.

Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels / Summary / 1

The project has four components:

1. Control of grey squirrels

·  Undertaking grey squirrel control in key locations to reduce the most significant immediate and long term threat posed red squirrels in the Highlands, Argyll, North-East Scotland and northern Tayside;

·  Undertaking control of grey squirrels in the vicinity of Forestry Commission Red Squirrel Strongholds where necessary;

·  Encouraging landowner and community involvement in reducing grey squirrel presence in and around control areas by assisting with Rural Development Contract grant applications, by developing trap loan schemes and providing training in grey squirrel control;

·  Promoting an understanding of the need for grey squirrel control to the wider community;

·  Contributing to the Red Squirrels in South Scotland Project.

2. Management of forests for red squirrels

·  Providing advice on red squirrel-friendly forest management and assistance with applications to landowners eligible for funding through the Scottish Rural Development Programme to maximise the benefit of their forests for red squirrels;

·  Producing site-specific red squirrel management recommendations to feed into new or revised forest plans.

3. Survey and Monitoring

·  Undertaking standardised surveys and implement monitoring practices to determine the impact of the project activities on squirrel populations;

·  Undertaking targeted public campaigns in grey squirrel control zones to raise awareness of red squirrel conservation issues and to encourage the recording of red and grey squirrels;

·  Maintaining widespread recording and a web-based recording scheme for submission of red and grey squirrel records from across Scotland;

·  Updating all incoming distribution records onto the Scottish Squirrel Database, including data collected from local records centres, and providing summaries and mapping of updated data for stakeholders and the wider public.

4. Sharing best practise

·  In association with FCS, producing current woodland management advice bringing together all advice in a format that is easily accessible to private forest and woodland owners and managers, and ensuring that it is widely available;

·  Develop partnerships with landowner and land manager groups, private foresters, local biodiversity action partnerships, local authorities, countryside rangers, other conservation bodies, gamekeeper groups, shooting and fishing groups, community groups to share information for the benefit of red squirrel conservation

·  Produce mobile interpretation displays for use at countryside events and for circulation round local authority libraries

·  Maintain a project website to provide information on management and distribution of squirrels

·  Undertake public education events to bring an awareness of red squirrel conservation issues to the wider community

·  Produce articles and information for the press and national and local magazines to publicise the project and its aims to the wider public.

·  Identify 3 commercial forest sites, and seek management agreements with owners, where red squirrel conservation measures can be applied in order to demonstrate the benefits to red squirrels of the policies and practices currently available

This project is being financed by the SSRS Project Partners and Aberdeen Greenspace

Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels / Summary / 1

FURTHER INFORMATION

The red squirrel was one of the first species identified for conservation action under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan in 1995. It has been estimated that around 75% of the UK population is now to be in found in Scotland (c. 121,000 animals) and in 1998 the Scottish Squirrel Group drew up a Scottish Strategy for Red Squirrel Conservation. This was updated and re-launched in January 2004. Of the six threats to red squirrels listed in the Strategy, competition from the introduced grey squirrel was first, followed by disease transmitted by the grey squirrel

A third threat identified was the change in woodland habitat brought about by extensive replacement of felled Scots pine and Norway spruce plantations with new plantations of Sitka spruce. This habitat offers a limited and unpredictable supply of food for red squirrels. The change is understood to be a mixed blessing, as the poor quality of Sitka spruce for red squirrels is offset by the greater difficulty encountered by the larger grey squirrel in living in this habitat. This potentially makes plantations with a large proportion of Sitka spruce the one habitat where red squirrels can generally out-compete greys.

The fourth major threat identified in the Scottish Strategy was conflict with other management objectives. Advice on habitat management for red squirrel conservation given in the Forestry Commission’s Practice Note 5 recommends large areas of conifer and avoidance of mixing large-seeded broadleaved trees such as oak, beech or hazel. This recommendation has the potential to conflict with other biodiversity conservation aims and so cannot necessarily be implemented everywhere. To address this, work was done in 2002-2004 to identify woodlands for red squirrel conservation in Scotland. This was based on squirrel distribution, woodland size and composition, site defendability, site management and socio-economic considerations. The result was a list of 150 Priority Woodlands for red squirrel conservation, which were recommended as the forests where red squirrel conservation action would provide the most sustainable benefits.

In 2006 a programme of conservation action for the red squirrel in Scotland was set out in the Scottish Red Squirrel Action Plan 2006-2011 by a government working group. One of the Key Actions is to identify a subset of the Priority Woodlands, the “Stronghold Sites”, which are to be managed as refuge sites for red squirrels. In 2007 Forestry Commission Scotland began a process In 2007 Forestry Commission Scotland began a process to identify 20 large functionally connected forest networks destined to become the red squirrel “Stronghold Sites” by a parallel process to the Priority Woodland selection. The process is not yet complete, but the Strongholds are likely to include many of the forests identified as Priority Woodlands in the earlier process. Each Stronghold network will have detailed red squirrel conservation plans drawn up to feed into forest design planning and bring about large-scale habitat improvements for red squirrels. Strongholds will be identified to local authorities as priority sites for red squirrels where damage to the habitat should be avoided. This work is subject to public consultation

The red squirrel is also listed as one of the priority species in the SNH A Five Year Species Action Framework: Making a difference for Scotland's species (2007), along with the grey squirrel as an invasive non-native species. This recommends proactive grey squirrel control in strategic, targeted areas informed by the identification of natural barriers and pinch-points. Recent work by Newcastle University, commissioned by SNH, modelled woodland distribution and potential grey squirrel dispersal routes to identify a number of natural barriers and potential pinch-points.