Slimbridge is marking 80 years as a home for nēnē geese

Slimbridge, the first reserve of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, is marking 80 years on the banks of the Severn. The BBC reported on November 10, 2026, that Peter Scott arrived in November 1946 for the swans and geese that winter there after flying from the Arctic. He settled beside a lake, dug channels, and built hides. The trust now runs 10 wetland reserves in the UK.

One of the early projects was the nēnē, the Hawaiian goose. By 1949 about 24 birds remained. Scott asked Hawaii for a few, received two females first, and later hand-reared nine chicks at Slimbridge. The BBC said more than 3,000 nēnē live now, most of them in Hawaii, and that a handful are still at Slimbridge, where volunteers feed them lettuce. The reserve has also hand-reared common cranes and the Madagascar pochard. Chief executive Sarah Fowler used the anniversary to argue for restoring a million hectares of wetland worldwide. She said about 85 percent of the world's wetlands have been lost, and that the charity calculates salt marshes bury carbon about four times faster than trees. That carbon figure is the trust's claim. The news is the 80th year and the nēnē that are still on the reserve. It is not a completed global restoration.