More than £10,000 raised for wildlife trust after Llyn Brenig osprey nest is cut down

More than £10,000 has been raised a wildlife trust after nesting platform for ospreys was cut down with a chainsaw.

Donations have been flooding in for the North Wales Wildlife Trust, which runs the site at Llyn Brenig, following the act of vandalism on Friday.

Improved security measures are now set to be put in place as trust staff look to encourage the two ospreys which were using the nest to stay at the site and breed.

The attack on the platform occurred shortly after the female osprey had laid an egg.

Two new nests have been created, although confusion has been caused after one was placed at the site on the Denbighshire-Conwy border earlier this week without authorisation.

In an update on the situation posted on Facebook, staff from the Brenig Osprey Project said: “Our ospreys are still around – pair-bonded, fishing, showing territorial behaviour and generally indicating that they’d like to stay at Llyn Brenig.

“They have been investigating the two nests, and the one at the original location in particular.

“This is good news – though it’s very much a case of waiting and seeing, and absolutely minimising any disturbance.

“As per our last update, we had a clear plan re. nests which we won’t summarise again here, and which would have been enacted on Monday morning.

“However, as many of you will have already read on Llyn Brenig’s own Facebook page, a further unauthorised nest was erected by an unidentified party on the remnants of the original nest pole on Sunday night.

“Significantly enhanced on-site protection measures have now been implemented, with more to follow in the coming days and weeks.

“We hope you’ll understand that we aren’t able to go into any further detail about what’s in place, and would ask that everyone avoids public speculation (for obvious reasons).

“We are also conscious of the huge number of offers of time, expertise and/or equipment from individual supporters, and we are actively looking at how best to utilise this support – we will be in touch once a plan is in place, but our absolute priority in terms of security has been the immediate days ahead.

“Finally, we have been absolutely overwhelmed with people’s offers of support of all kinds.

“We are genuinely sorry that we aren’t currently able to respond to each one individually, but we will be once we’ve had a chance to catch our breath!

“One of the most frequent requests has been to donate money, which we’re truly humbled by – in fact, the Wildlife Trust have already received over £10,000 in just four days, which the BOP team will be putting to good use in the days ahead.”

Anyone wishing to make a donation to the project can do so by visiting https://www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/donate/brenig-osprey-project