A HISTORICAL LOOK AT THE WILDLIFE OF THE NORTH PENNINES

 At the November meeting of the Alston Moor Historical Society we were particularly pleased to welcome one of our own members as the speaker for the evening. Colin Simm is a well known local naturalist, poet and writer and his subject was ‘Changes in the Air’. Colin drew upon his many years of studying the flora and fauna, past and present, in our area to give a historical perspective of how our natural habitat has changed over the years. The talk looked at the situation of the past, going back to the Bronze Age, and then covered the current wildlife position highlighting ‘winners and losers’. Generally speaking most species are struggling to survive but it was encouraging to learn that there are glimmers of hope and resurgence in some cases.

The presentation focussed on the area between Stainmore and the Cheviots, known as the Alston Block, which experiences similar conditions throughout and which has evolved in a similar consistent fashion. Usually our speakers have dealt with very tangible material, e.g. remains of buildings, artefacts, ancient sites etc., all of which are reasonably durable and have, to varying extents, survived the passing of the years. Flora and fauna is clearly not as resilient and traces, remains or other evidence of past existences are short-lived and have, to a large extent vanished. However, over the years there has been a significant amount of archaeological work conducted into those remains which have survived the rigours of time. Occasionally remains, usually bones, can be uncovered in river beds or exposed in open land by erosion, but the most meaningful sites for unearthing samples have been the interiors of caves. Not only have animals lived and died in these caves but they have taken the results of their hunting activities inside for consumption, thus leaving even more bones and remains of non-cave dwelling creatures.

The most productive cave in this area is the limestone Teesdale cave complex. There are large caverns which are unfortunately no longer accessible but in Victorian times they were a tourist attraction and proved to be very popular. It is recorded that ladies in their finery were easily able to negotiate the site. This resulted in a lot of damage to site, not only by walking over the ground, but by removing many of the bones as souvenirs.

Scientific excavation of these cave deposits has produced a number of interesting discoveries and the bones indicate that, not only is there evidence of the animals and birds that might be expected to have been present, but there are also some surprises. A wolf skull is a prized find and there has also been positive identification of bones of capercaillie, harlequin duck, brown bear, lynx, otter, marten, wild pig, horse and artic hare.

Since those days the wildlife population has changed dramatically due to all manner of reasons, e.g. climate change, changes in the food sources and, most importantly, the increased presence of mankind. However whilst many of the species listed above have gone forever, it appears that there are still more creatures living amongst us than might be realised by the uninitiated. There is encouraging news about the otter, marten, water vole and some species of birds including the corncrake, but the red squirrel faces an uphill battle. There is even a recent sighting of a mysterious creature in the Kendal area which may be a coatimundi.

The area supports adders, slow worms and lizards and all these are thriving in what might be considered a fairly hostile environment. However it is not possible to comment on the changes that may have occurred with them over the years. Similarly whilst the area has a reasonably healthy insect and butterfly population it is not possible to draw any conclusions due to the lack of evidence from the past. There are some interesting insects in the area, the ‘stars’ perhaps being the fluorescent and spectacular green carab ‘shining beetle’ and the bog bush cricket, the latter unfortunately on the decline.

Hopefully the greater public awareness of environmental matters and the more sympathetic approach being adopted by most of the farming community will help many species avoid being relegated to history.