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The Life Scientific: Debbie Pain on conserving globally threatened bird species

12/05/2020

Debbie Pain on conserving globally threatened bird species

BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Debbie Pain on conserving globally threatened bird species

Professor Debbie Pain talks to Jim Al-Khalili about conserving our endangered birdlife.

Professor Debbie Pain talks to Jim Al-Khalili on solving hidden threats to our birdlife in a conservation career that's saved many bird species from the brink of extinction.

Professor Debbie Pain has spent the last 30 years solving some of the most devastating threats to birdlife, saving many species from the brink of extinction. Her childhood passion for bird spotting drove her into conservation research with the RSPB and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. She’s led scientific groundwork all over the planet: from reversing a dramatic mysterious decline in Asian vultures in the Indian sub-continent through to daring helicopters journeys into remote foggy North-East Russia in a bid to locate and conserve eggs of a hugely charismatic and threatened bird - the  Spoon-billed Sandpiper. And as she tells Jim, her career defining research into one of the great hidden threats to birdlife  - the toxic effect of billions of spent lead shot used to catch game birds -  is finally turning the tide on attitudes to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of wildfowl.

Producer Adrian Washbourne

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Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future

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