Sir Peter Scott was one of the great champions of captive breeding to save species at risk from extinction.
Sir Peter Scott was one of the great champions of captive breeding to save species at risk from extinction. He demonstrated the success of captive breeding with the recovery of the nene or Hawaiian goose.
The world population dipped below 50 just after the second world war. Sir Peter arranged for three to be sent to Slimbridge and within ten years had reared 126 birds. These were sent to Hawaii to help to sustain the wild population.
The legacy lives on
Rigorous wildlife monitoring programmes set up by Sir Peter Scott have helped scientists devise action plans to revive populations of waterbirds from the threat of extinction. To date WWT has helped improve the conservation status more than 20 species. In 2005, Laysan teal were reintroduced to the Hawaiian islands with the help of WWT expertise.
Peter Scott established protected areas at the WWT wetland centres in the UK which were vital in providing winter habitat for species such as the barnacle goose and Bewick's swan.
WWT continues to manage over 2,000 hectares of the most valuable wildlife areas in the UK, including seven Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), one Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI), six Special Protection Areas (SPA), part of one Marine Nature Reserve and six Ramsar sites, supporting over 200,000 waterbirds. WWT has just expanded its reserve at WWT Welney with 40 hectares of wet grassland - ideal for species such as snipe and lapwing that are suffering national declines.