Bison Ranger Experiences at Wilder Blean

Interview transcript

Rob Smith: Well, let's start in the Blean, the flagship conservation project that's being jointly run by Kent Wildlife Trust and the Wildwood Trust, in a huge area of woodlands near Canterbury, where, in the summer of 2022, a small herd of bison were released into the woods, forming the first wild herd in the UK in around 12,000 years. But, of course, bison form just one part of the project. It's really all about biodiversity and seeing what happens when you allow nature to actually take its course.

And it's not just bison. There's longhorn cattle, Iron Age pigs and Exmoor ponies, all doing their bit as well. I was lucky enough to join a bison ranger experience on a lovely autumnal day, along with a bunch of people from as far afield as Essex and Hereford, as well as more locally, to get a bit of an insight into the work that the rangers do. Our guide for the day was the lead bison and conservation grazing ranger, Tom Gibbs.

Tom Gibbs: So we are currently in West Blean, which is part of the Wider Blean woodland complex, and we're in the western end of the site at the moment, at the beginning of the Wild Art Trail, as you can see from the signs behind us.

Rob Smith: Right, okay. And looking at the Wild Art Trail sign, we have from the bottom up. We have a pig, Iron Age pig.

Tom Gibbs: Iron Age pigs. That's right. We have our English longhorn cattle above them. Exmoor ponies, and then the European bison-

Rob Smith: The big boy at the top there. And we're hoping on our walk that we're going to actually get the chance to see all of these.

Tom Gibbs: That's the hope, yeah. So we will be essentially doing what we would do as a standard day of work, going out, looking for the animals, going off trails, tracking them. And the idea is, hopefully, yeah, to catch the full set. That's the dream.

Rob Smith: But it's not always easy, is it? Because how big an area are they actually wandering around in?

Tom Gibbs: So currently, the conservation grazers, so that's our Exmoor ponies, Longhorn cattle and Iron Age pigs; they're in about 250-hectare. The bison are going to be in a 200-hectare area eventually, but currently they're confined to a 50-hectare area.

Rob Smith: Right, okay. And the bit that they're in, because they're not allowed to just wander where they want to, so they're within a sort of fenced off bit, aren't they?

Tom Gibbs: That’s right. So they're in an enclosure. It's a double fence line, one to prevent the public getting too close to the electric fence, which is the one that is used as a deterrent for the bison. But they're very respectful of that. We don't see any encounters, really, with that fence line.

Rob Smith: Okay, so let's just talk a little bit about the point of them, as these big beasts wandering around in the woods. What are they doing? Why have you introduced them?

Tom Gibbs: So we are looking to them as ecosystem engineers, which means they shape the landscape around them. We want to look for these Nature-based Solutions. So tried and tested methods of woodland management, things like coppicing, clearfelling, pollarding. Whilst there is a place for this kind of management, we're seeing those worrying trends.

With biodiversity losses still occurring, lack of appropriate woodland management is one of the biggest drivers of species loss. So what we're looking for is these specific behaviours of all these animals that are hopefully going to shape the landscape around them. They're going to be eating, feeding their dung, their physique. All of these things help to shape the landscape around and hopefully give other wildlife an opportunity to flourish.

Rob Smith: So you've been wandering around the woods with them for the last year or so since they were actually introduced. Have you started actually seeing any of those changes happening?

Tom Gibbs: Definitely, yeah. So the bison were the first to arrive. We've probably seen the biggest impacts from them also because they're in that smaller area. So that's been remarkable to see how quickly the impacts have been there. So we're talking about in some instances, maybe up to an acre of places like sweet chestnut, heavily debarked, stripping back that bark, killing the trees off and creating this lovely standing deadwood, eating the foliage. And as a result, we're starting to see light filter down to the ground. We're seeing things like heather now sprouting because of the opportunities given from that new sunlight. We've seen things like slow worms and common lizards basking in the sunlight that has been afforded them as a result. So that's just a small example of what the bison are doing.

And the ponies, the cattle and the pigs are also throughout the woods. The rest of the public area, we're seeing things being coppice, mock coppice, where normally we'd go in and fell from the ground, the cattle are pulling things over, snapping stems. We've got the pigs rootling around, disturbing the soil and allowing seeds to germinate and hitting the bracken as well, which is, again, can be quite a dominant species. And even the ponies like to keep-they crop very closely to the ground. We've seen that a lot around the areas where we can publicly access. So, yeah, the impacts have been amazing to see and that's in such a short time frame, so it's going to be really exciting to see how that progresses.

Rob Smith: All right, well, let's go wandering off into the woods then and see if we can actually see some of this stuff happening in action.

Tom Gibbs: We're on the tracks, hot in the tails of the Exmoor ponies. So actually, we've just got some nice prints here. So, again, we can see as we come over there obviously lots of fairly recent tracks. And what we're going to be doing is a welfare check on the animals, basically making sure that they're happy, they're healthy. We had a lot of rain yesterday and sort of high winds, so it's always good to get eyes on them to make sure that they're okay after a sort of unpredictable weather. But this is yeah, a day in the life of a ranger. We would be out here walking these woods, trying to read the signs and track the animals to find them, and, like I said, to then hopefully do some condition scoring, make sure they're okay.

Cathy Howard: This is just fascinating. I love that we're just walking through here, trying to track where the pony herd is.

Rob Smith: One of my fellow experiencers, Cathy Howard.

Cathy Howard: I love the fact that we're reintroducing bison into South East. It's just very interesting. And the fact that we've got an opportunity to come and see it is just yeah, for me, amazing, really loving it.

Rob Smith: Have you been out on one of these safari-type things before?

Cathy Howard: No, I haven't. This is quite a way for us, but I think we'll be back again. We'll come at a different time of the year. Yeah, we've been looking forward to coming down here all year and we haven't been able to, so it's our first opportunity. And what a lovely day for it.

Rob Smith: Yeah, it's glorious, isn't it, with the sunshine. So where have you come? You say you come a fair distance.

Cathy Howard: We've come from the Kent Surrey border, so it's not too bad; about an hour and a half drive.

Rob Smith: And why are you bothered about coming out and taking a look?

Cathy Howard: We're just passionate about wildlife, every aspect of it, the whole environment, the trees, insects, the bison, everything that lives here. And we're very worried about what's happening to the state of our world and this country at the moment.

Rob Smith: It's kind of encouraging, actually, isn't it, when you can see they're doing some stuff?

Cathy Howard: Exactly, yes. You get quite upset and worried about things and you come out here and see a success. It cheers you up a bit and realises it's not all doom and gloom.

Louise Kelly: I'm Louise. I'm the Supporter Experience manager at Kent Wildlife Trust. So I look at a lot of the events and experiences we can do to get people here enjoying the woods and hopefully today, if we're lucky, seeing some of the animals.

Rob Smith: Why is it important to get people out, doing this kind of stuff?

Louise Kelly: I think it's a really important way to get everyone kind of involved with the project and experiencing exactly what we're doing here in the woods. And this is the best way that we've got so far, really, where we are actually kind of using all the tracking equipment to see if we can kind of see the animals in action in the woods, just keep everyone really interested in what's going on. You can really see the insights that you get from the Bison ranger team on these kind of events will give you a whole different perspective and understanding of what the project is here for, why we're doing it.

Rob Smith: Because there's a real balance, isn't there, between making sure that you keep places wild and keep people out, and at the same time letting people know that you're doing that and you have to let an amount of people in to see that it's going on.

Louise Kelly: Yes, exactly. It's a very fine balance, as you say, between kind of publicising what we're doing and wanting people to come and see it for themselves, but not having the reserve sort of overrun with so many people that actually it then have a negative effect on what we're doing as well.

Rob Smith: And what do you personally make of it? What are you getting out of today?

Louise Kelly: I think it's brilliant. It's a really different way of looking at it. And for me, it feels really good that we're now at this stage where we can actually have the kind of bison rangers involved directly. It's that kind of next level. We've been doing lots of guided tours, which have been great, but it's really good to see that extra element where it's a little bit more involved.

It's that flexibility to get the best from the event. So it's great to see different bits of the woods and the kind of excitement of knowing that you're on the track of the animals.

Rob Smith: We might get to see one. You never know.

Louise Kelly: Yeah, I've got my fingers crossed. We've still got plenty of time.

Rob Smith: But we've seen woodland ants, we've seen loads and loads of different funguses fruiting all over the place as well. I mean, it does feel quite wild.

Louise Kelly: Yes, you can really see-you just have to take a moment to look and you can see how alive the woods are. So, yes, there are the obvious things if you get to see ponies and bison. But yeah, as you say, you can see the life that's in the woods just by kind of as soon as you step foot in it, really. And that's all really exciting as well. And it's a beautiful time of year to be exploring the woods as well.

Rob Smith: It is. It couldn't be a lovelier day, could it? It’s absolutely glorious.

Louise Kelly: Yeah, perfect. We've got very lucky.

Rob Smith: So, Tom, we found a pony.

Tom Gibbs: We did at last; long last. They've been chasing us, I think about, for the last 20 minutes. We've come back up here onto the Art Trail and lo and behold, we've managed to spot them. Camouflaged almost but we were saying if they weren't moving, which they weren't to begin with, it was only Eddie's keen eyes camouflaged perfectly silent and knew that we were there. But obviously you sometimes need that little bit of movement, a bit of a giveaway. But yeah, we think there's six in there at the moment. We probably won't follow them into really dense vegetation like this. We don't want to spook them, but normally we'd give them a little bit of space we can possibly follow in to try and try and see the rest.

Rob Smith: So, what kind of ponies are these?

Tom Gibbs: So these are Exmoor ponies from the moor Exmoor down in Devon. So they were born wild on the moor. So these are real pedigree animals and use very hardy that's one of the reasons they were chosen. They can be outdoors all year round. They can find food from themselves really well, so they're quite low, minimal input and maintenance, which is great. That's what we want. We want them to be out all year round.

Rob Smith: And they're part of the mix, aren't they, that you've got the ponies, pigs as well as the bison and the longhorn.

Tom Gibbs: That's right, yes. So the ponies are interesting. They tend to be rather than sort of pushing through the dense understory and vegetation, which they are doing a little bit of that here. You can see some trampling of the bracken here as well, which is great, but they often follow the more sort of set up corridors created by those bigger animals. So your bison, your cattle, and also the way that they feed, they are a bit like a lawn mower.

They closely crop the vegetation, whereas cattle will tend to sort of rip with their tongue, which creates this sort of mosaic of heights within the-we call it the sward, the height of the vegetation; the ponies crop it a lot closer to the ground, so it's a lot more sort of manicured. So when we go along the edge of this art track, you can see where they've managed to keep things much more lower to the ground. And then as a result, you see lots more of these sort of flowers coming through, which obviously wouldn't be able to compete with the bracken and the taller grasses and willow that we can see in front of us.

Rob Smith: Okay, so the point of having-it's like different sized lawn mowers in different parts of the forest?

Tom Gibbs: Yeah exactly. They're all doing-carrying out different behaviours, different techniques, and each one of those techniques will benefit different species.

Rob Smith: And as we're looking at them here-I mean, I'm looking at them and they're how far away? What, 20ft, 30ft?

Tom Gibbs: Yeah, yep.

Rob Smith: It’s no, distance, and even though I'm looking at them, they're really hard to see.

Tom Gibbs: Yeah.

Rob Smith: And they're moving. And you really got to tune in your senses. You've got one poking its head through here. It's almost like they disappear and they blur in so effortlessly. Yeah we just stood-I was explaining a bit about the feeding regime and how they closely cropped the deck. And Eddie's all of a sudden said, “oh, there's one five metres away, just over there.” And we were just oblivious up until that point. So, no, it's fantastic. And like I say, you can see how well adapted they are to this sort of location. And it's lovely to see them actually together. They do often split off into subgroups, so to see them all together at the moment is brilliant.

Rob Smith: And they're all lads, aren't they?

Tom Gibbs: They are. They're all stallions, so in theory, they could all breed. One of the reasons that we don't have females on site here is we want to be able to control their numbers, right; to mimic the number of bison. They're the only breeding animals on site, so as they naturally grow the herd size of the bison, we will mimic that by introducing other animals within the cattle, ponies and pigs.

Rob Smith: And ponies, they don't fight amongst each other if you have a bunch of males together?

Tom Gibbs: They do, yeah. No, there's definitely a hierarchy and quite literally a pecking order. At times, they will nibble at each other. They sometimes kick out at each other if they're particularly frustrated. And that's why you see these subgroups sometimes forming certain individuals closer to one another for safety. They tend to reconvene about sort of in the evening, I think, for safety during the night, but during the day, they will break off into these little groups. So there's definitely a hierarchy. And they do get a bit agitated with each other, that's for sure.

Rob Smith: Now, among our group was a lady called Trish Matthews, who among other things, is involved in a charity called Thrive that helps disadvantaged and disabled people through therapeutic gardening. And she travelled all the way from Hereford to be here.

Trish Matthews: It's very interesting seeing the distinction between forests and conservation and woodland areas compared to the scale you get in gardening. So gardening has some advantages in that it's small scale. It was usually small scale nature, so it's one way of making nature accessible to a lot of people, whereas forests sometimes can be a bit frightening for some people. On the other hand, the boundaries between gardening and nature conservation are quite blurred, I think, these days, because many people are gardening more for nature and conservation. There's more intervention in conservation areas and woodland areas.

Rob Smith: And do you come from a kind of a nature conservancy background yourself?

Trish Matthews: No, not at all. I started off with a PhD in geophysics. I came from a sort of research basis, but I was always quite interested in nature and being out in nature. And I earned an MA in coaching and mentoring practise, looking at basically how the environment influences adult change and development. And that led on to-I was working in Telecoms at the time, in fact. And I left Telecoms and did some volunteering for a charity that did experiential education for children. So a bit of forest school work and a bit of historical reenactment type stuff. So I like the bigger scale, larger scale, and I've just bought some land where we're hoping to re-establish some woodland.

Rob Smith: Oh, right, okay.

Trish Matthews: So understanding management of the woodland and also understanding how you can manage it for nature and for things like the hazel dormouse and things is going to be very interesting.

Rob Smith: How big a piece of land are we talking?

Trish Matthews: The bit that we're going to wood isn't that large. It's probably about an acre or so, so it's just getting that balance. But the nice thing with coppicing is you have that ability to get a variety of canopy heights and a variety of tree species in a relatively small area.

Rob Smith: And if you'd been doing this ten years ago, would your ideas of what you're doing with the woodland have been very different?

Trish Matthews: I think probably I wouldn't have seen woodland so much as being part of a garden setting, although my mum was always very into sort of wildlife gardening, or though I think that might have been just because she didn't spend that much time gardening.

Rob Smith: So, given all of that, what do you make of Kent Wildlife Trust's kind of big philosophy, then, of wilding and rewilding?

Trish Matthews: I think it's something we desperately need in this country. We need to work out how we can live in a nature-rich environment, and that means how we can bring nature both into our local environment, but also have these bigger areas where we're sort of the visitors going into them. And it's designed there more for a wider-scale area for the animals themselves.

Rob Smith: And it has to be said that on a day like today and it is an absolutely glorious day, isn't it? You couldn't find anywhere better.

Trish Matthews: No, it's lovely. And we've seen the ponies and I don't know if we'll get to see the bison or if they're off in the middle of the area, but it's a gorgeous day to be out in the woodland at the moment. It's really nice.

Rob Smith: Then, before we knew it, after a great two and a half hours of tramping through the woodland, we were back where we started. We did get to see some longhorn cattle browsing in a stand of coppiced, sweet chestnut on the way, but sadly, neither an Iron Age pig or indeed a bison. They were just hiding too deep in their woodlands to be seen. I mean, Tom, that was great. We've seen a lot of ponies.

Tom Gibbs: We did, yeah. I think we may have seen them twice, actually, in the end, didn't we? We struggled to begin with, but it's fantastic that it's often the way. At the end of the day, you've had a long walk and they just welcome you back to the cottage and you sort of think, we could have saved a lot of time there. But no, it's part of the fun. You don't know what you're going to find. I think that's the excitement.

Rob Smith: So we didn't get to see the bison, unfortunately, because they were, like, right deep in the middle of the woods. But I have to say that it's one of these things that just walking around the woods here. It's so beautiful this time of year. We've still got some leaves on the trees, but they're properly on the turn. It's just a lovely place to be.

Tom Gibbs: Beautiful. I mean, it's the best kind of office you could ever have. And like you said, on a day like today, better than yesterday, where it was an absolute washout, it has to be said. But clear blue skies all day, like you said, those lovely autumnal colours. And just seeing the animals, it's like a safari. You don't know what you're going to see. And that's part of the appeal, I think. These are wild animals. They're not there on demand and nor should they be. So it's about learning how to interact with those animals in these wild spaces. And that's part of it is you just don't know when you're going to see them.

Rob Smith: Now, one of the things that I have seen an awful lot of as we were going around was loads of mushrooms at this time of year, funguses all over the place.

Tom Gibbs: Yeah. So obviously, it's the perfect time of year. It's really damp conditions, the leaf litter is nice and thick, so it's the perfect sort of appetite for those fruiting bodies to come through. I think we've seen loads of these. We've seen magpie inkcaps, we've seen fly agaric, rust gills; and that's just off the top of our head, so it's fantastic. They are everywhere. And actually, one of the interesting things is that we often see, like, little bite marks out of them.

So that's something that I'm quite intrigued to see what in particular is feeding on them. We actually saw the calf the other day eating what we think was some rust gills over in the bison enclosure, so that's quite exciting. That's the first, so it's interesting to see whether that's a trend.

Rob Smith: Is that one of the things you'll be concerned about? Because obviously, eating the wrong kind of mushroom can be very bad.

Tom Gibbs: So, in terms of the bison, we have witnessed them eating what would normally be toxic to other livestock. So eating things like you even bracken in high enough concentrations. So the fungi, I wonder if they're just learning and it's a little bit it's not too damaging. Obviously, they've got quite tough constitutions, but, yeah, it is one of those-I don't know if it's a trend yet or whether it's a one off. It's the only time we've ever seen that. But like I said, elsewhere in the woods, I definitely have seen these almost like teeth or mouth shaped sizes. Somebody's obviously had a bite out of them. So interesting to see who or what is having a try.

Rob Smith: Now, obviously, part of the reason why we’ve come out today is because it is a safari and we've had people coming from Essex and people coming from Hereford and quite a few a long distance to come in. You're really keen to let people in to see what's happening here, but respectfully?

Tom Gibbs: Yeah, 100%. So one of the things with a project like this, with the animals that we have on site, it's about reconnecting with wild spaces, wild animals. We're not used to that in the UK, we still have our deer populations and whatnot, but big herbivores like this, it's a learning curve and obviously, the more people are exposed to that, the more they understand the relationship, the better the coexistence is going to be. And looking to the future, we really need these animals to help give nature the best opportunity in an uncertain future. So by learning how to behave around these animals, it reduces the opportunity for conflict, but also gives people, for their mental health, being able to come out and see these animals, it's such a great opportunity.

And as we've seen people coming from far afield, so it's a real privilege to be able to show them around.

Rob Smith: Yeah, it's been great. Well, Tom, thanks ever so much for your time.

Tom Gibbs: It’s a pleasure.

Rob Smith: It's been brilliant. Next time, we might see a bison.

Tom Gibbs: I'll try to guarantee you that, but, yeah, I'll have to have a word with them. Thank you.

Rob Smith: Tom Gibbs, the lead bison and conservation grazing ranger there. And if you want to go on a safari or a ranger experience into the Blean, then just go to the Kent Wildlife Trust website, kentwildlifetrust.org.uk, and take a look at the What’s On page. You can book it from there. And if you want to find out more about Thrive, which is the social and therapeutic horticulture charity that was mentioned, well, you can find them at thrive.org.uk.