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Saving Species

Documentaries

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Examining the world of nature and the challenges of wildlife conservation

Saving Species: Series 3

Saving Species: Series 3: Episode 2

Episode 2

Series 3

BBC Radio 4 - Saving Species, Series 3, Episode 2

Brett Westwood looks at ways to allow bats to fly free in an increasingly urbanised land.

Brett Westwood looks at bats and how research is looking at finding ways to allow them to fly unhindered in an increasingly urbanised land.

Saving Species presented by Brett Westwood this week has a flavour of the night about it. Bats are both loved and loathed by the public, but their plight in an increasingly urbanised Britain is the focus of this week's programme. 

Professor John Altringham from Leeds University has spent much of his academic career looking at the role of evolution, especially in bats, and how this shapes the form and physiology of animals for locomotion, in particular for swimming and flying. But in a rapidly changing World, evolution is struggling to cope, so can we as humans do anything to help flying animals like bats cope with an increasingly built up environment?

Brett Westwood heads off to a Worcestershire woodland in the hope of seeing one of the rarest mammals in the UK, and a UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species, the Bechstein's bat. Here he joins James Hitchcock who is part of the National Bat Monitoring Programme which began in 2007. 

Over the years many tortoises have been a special pet to families across the Globe. However the Sulcata tortoise is now of global concern and to discover more of the conservation efforts to return this species in the wild, Helen Scales travels to Senegal to see the pioneering work by Tomas Diagne.

Also in the programme - News from around the world with our regular news reporter, Kelvin Boot. And we'll update you on the activities of the Open Universities iSpot.

Producer : Sheena Duncan
Presenter : Brett Westwood
Editor : Julian Hector.

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