A free, online entoLIVE event, presented by Dr Helen Taylor and coordinated by the Biological Recording Company.
The Pine Hoverfly (Blera fallax) is critically endangered in Britain, reduced to just one population in a small forest patch in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Since 2018, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) has been running a conservation breeding programme for this important pollinator at its Highland Wildlife Park Zoo. Following a record-breaking breeding season in 2021, the RZSS team started reintroducing pine hoverflies back into the Caledonian forests they once inhabited. Hear about the progress of this project and how the partnership between RZSS, the Rare Invertebrates in the Cairngorms project, and Forestry and Land Scotland is working to rescue one of Britain’s most endangered invertebrates.Dr Helen Taylor is the conservation programme manager at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and has been leading the pine hoverfly conservation breeding and release project since 2019. Helen is a conservation reintroduction specialist who has worked with multiple bird species, managed the Knapdale beaver reinforcement project, and has recently become an invertebrate convert, managing RZSS’ pine hoverfly, pond mud snail, and dark bordered beauty moth conservation breeding for release programmes.
More information is available via the booking link.