The Tweed Valley Osprey project (TVOP) is a collaboration between Friends of Kailzie Wildlife and Forestry and Land Scotland. The project has been a conservation success story - seeing the restoration of a thriving osprey population in the South of Scotland since the bird was declared extinct here in 1916.
Ospreys returned to Scotland in 1954, but their success has been in large part due to the efforts of projects like TVOP. Since the 1990s, ospreys have been coming to the Tweed Valley to breed. However, since they were declared extinct in Scotland in 1916 due to Victorian hunting for eggs and skin, their comeback was slow and very vulnerable to threats, including human interference.
With the ospreys having shown a natural willingness to repopulate the Tweed Valley, the Tweed Valley Osprey Project was set up to encourage that natural process by making sure the ospreys are protected and can find good places to nest. Since the project’s inception they have overseen the hatching of over 250 chicks. They have done this by encouraging safe nesting sites and protecting those sites. In addition, birds have been ringed and tracked to monitor the population, breeding pairs, and their migration patterns between Scotland and Africa.
Ospreys are a key apex predator in the ecosystem, and their demise by the early 20th century was down to human activity. Their presence in the Tweed Valley and south of Scotland adds to a more biodiverse natural environment. This is key in tackling the biodiversity crisis prioritised by the Scottish Government following the 2019 IPBES Report on Biodiversity Loss.
Through outreach events in schools to hosting school visits at Kailzie and Glentress, TVOP has involved young people extensively. Through cooperation with Kailzie Estate, landowners in the surrounding area, police, and local authorities, the project has embedded itself, and the ospreys, firmly in the community and in the minds of the public, being all volunteer led.
TVOP has created a name for the Scottish Borders as a haven for some of the most spectacular wildlife in the British Isles. Tweeddale residents now know the ospreys as a local species – something which would have been unthinkable 25 years ago - and enriched The Tweed Valley as a destination by the presence of the ospreys.