‘Change is the essence of life but what we are going through at the moment is scarily rapid change. That’s the challenge’
New Wildlife Trust chairman on nature’s issues across Scotland
As he ponders the raft of challenges ahead, as the new custodian of Scotland’s wildlife, Dr Kenny Taylor’s mind wanders back to his youth more than 60 years ago.
Kenny will take over the role as chairman of the Scottish Wildlife Trust in September and, among the items in his inbox, are no small matters like reintroducing contentious species to Scotland’s landscape, dealing with an increasingly engaged public and, of course, a climate emergency. With
issues seemingly more diverse than Scotland’s unique environment, Kenny says it’s worth remembering the little things which sparked his life-long love of nature.
“When I was about seven or eight, my parents were happy for me to stravaig out about half a mile away around this kind of old industrial area where we lived in Kirkintilloch,” said the 69-year-old.
“I didn’t have a pair of binoculars when I was that young and I actually think that helped me suss out wildlife.
“If something was singing in a bush, I’d have to sneak up on it to look and listen.
“Like all naturalists, I had that wonder about the world around me, a curiosity.
“I hope that never leaves, I get just as excited about the small things around me as I do about huge landscapes.”
This week Kenny watched with the rest of the world as 11 bundles of fur were born in the Highland Wildlife Park; a litter of wildcat kittens.
The pictures were a social media hit, but it’s hoped these felines, when they’re released, will help save their endangered species.
Now based on the Black Isle in the Highlands, Kenny – along with most of the region – has been excited to see wildcats being reintroduced in recent months. Kenny said this won’t be the last animal we can
expect to start sharing Scotland with either.
“We have been involved in the debate surrounding reintroducing other species, there are lots that are not contentious and have already been brought back,” he said.
“Red kites have re-established, which is great, the Cairngorms National Park is looking at whether common cranes could be brought back there, and they are also going to have an official release of beavers before too long. I know from
European experience too that if we brought lynx back, it’s unlikely people would notice, it could add to the woodland environment and maybe even reduce the numbers of roe deer in some places. You obviously have to be careful about how these things are handled, but elements of restoration are exciting and making good some of the damage from the past.
“The words wolf and bear are scary and I don’t think it’s on our agenda to move them to the front of the queue. We could have wolves back in Scotland tomorrow but the main problems are social ones. We’ve not really had bears since Roman times.”
Kenny’s love of wildlife took him to St Andrews to study seabirds, then to being a wildlife writer, editor and surveyor.
“I have done a bit of a meander through different careers. I think that’s because I wanted to work at things that would benefit nature in a conservation sense,” he said.
Come September, Kenny will step into his new role as chairman of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. He isn’t new to the Trust, having been an employee and trustee through the years.
In his time with the charity, Kenny has been involved in a wide range of projects including supporting the community buyout of the Isle of Eigg in 1997 and more recently the campaign to save Coul Links and the establishment of Riverwoods.
But the current challenges facing Scotland’s wildlife is unlike anything Kenny, or anyone else for that matter, has had to tackle before.
“We are at a time of very rapid environmental change,” he said.
“Change is the essence of life, people who think things can stay the same aren’t on the same planet, stasis isn’t normal, change is.
“But what we are going through at the moment is scarily rapid change, that’s the challenge.
“In my role what I hope to do, in partnership with communities and our members on the ground, is see how we can look at our own reserves and work and ask ourselves if they are still fit for purpose.
“What do we need to do to try and make sure we too are changing to keep up with changing circumstances?”
Kenny highlighted areas including inshore waters and peatlands as those that need our attention most.
He said: “We are facing up to the inevitable which is that the seas are warming faster than our lands are at the moment. We are also looking at how we accelerate what we do to make sure our peatlands are wet, wonderful and carbon-storing rather than dry, cracking and carbon-producing.
“We are in a time of very rapid change so the Trust needs to keep surfing the wave or we’ll fall off along with the country.”
Biodiversity is also something Kenny feels strongly about promoting – and not only for the wildlife that will benefit from it.
“If you’ve got a richness of kinds of plants and wildlife from even insects then it means you’ve got a good system that might be able to sustain itself in the future,” he said.
“But also from a purely selfish point of view – this is the five-yearold boy interested in beasties in my garden in Kirkintilloch speaking – if you’ve got less variety, it’s boring. The thing that excites me every day about wildlife is the sense of surprise you get. That partly comes through variety.
“Just this week I was out with my daughter on a pretty long hike to check in on a particular pair of eagles and, much to our astonishment, we kept seeing lizards.
“When I remember that walk, although it was physically exhausting, what I will think of is those lizards.”