Study Tour

Wednesday 2nd March 2022

Off on the coach for a two day study tour. First we stopped off at Wakehurst for a tour of the Millennium Seed Bank. It is in fact a very large bunker that will withstand a nuclear attack. I learnt quite a few things - astonishingly the brazil nuts that we eat grow within one big nut, about 8 to a nut - see picture. I never knew that! The other thing that I hadnt really thought about is that they spend a lot of their time on working out how to germinate the seeds. They are no use if they don't germinate! So if they get new seeds in then they put them through the usual drying and freezing process, then they take some of them and work out the best way to get them to germinate. This can be easy but not always - it can be a lot of trial and error. Amazing place.

Then off to the British Wildlife Centre. See picture of cute harvest mouse! They have a lot of british mammals (fox, badger, otter, water vole. hedgehog, rates, harvest mice, polecat, mink, red squirrel etc). Some they are breeding and releasing into the wild to increase numbers, some are rehabilitations. Some parts of it seemed good, but they had a herd of deer in a small areas (they dont need conserving!). The rat enclosure was unnecessary. The owls didnt have much space to fly in their cages. Its difficult because they get all their money from visitors, who want to see the animals, but that means the animals are not necessarily in the biggest cages!