6 January 2009                           

Local volunteers help save threatened seabirds
 
This time last year, the RSPB Lincoln Local Group set itself an ambitious target – to raise £10,000 for the RSPB’s Save the Albatross campaign.
 
Rising to the challenge, the group went one better and raised a grand total of £10,336.
 
On Thursday 8 January, group leader Peter Skelson will be proudly handing over a cheque to Richard Powell, RSPB Director for Eastern England.
 
Over the last 12 months group members pulled out all the stops to hit their target, organizing activities such as a garden party, an open garden and plant sale, a village film show, a sponsored slim and a coffee morning. People made gifts, brought books and bric-a-brac to sell, and gave cash donations large and small.
 
In addition, the group’s committee organized events including an autumn fair, a coffee morning and a photographic competition. Profits from the Group’s monthly meetings and coach outings also went to swell the coffers.
 
Why should people in Lincoln be so stirred to give time, money and energy to save the albatross, a bird that hunts in the cold seas at the bottom of the world? Jo Bramwell from the group said, “We learned that 100,000 albatrosses die each year, caught on fishing hooks laid to provide us with the tuna we buy and eat. They are being killed in such vast numbers that they can't breed fast enough to keep up. Having survived in the harshest marine environments for 50 million years, these majestic birds are now in real danger of extinction because of human activity.”
 
The RSPB along with similar organizations around the world have set up an Albatross Task Force to help reverse this devastation. Fishing crews can take simple, effective measures to prevent this carnage, but this requires funding.  The RSPB Lincoln Local Group certainly rose to this challenge, and their efforts will go a long way towards this campaign.
 
For information about the RSPB Lincoln Local Group, go to www.lincolnrspb.org.uk or call Peter Skelson on 01522 695747