Manx Shearwater and Brown Rat Data from the Isle of Rum

The request was successful.

Dear Scottish Natural Heritage,

Please provide me with full details and methodology - including preliminary, summary and final reports relating to the monitoring of Manx Shearwaters and investigations into the Brown Rat on the Isle of Rum.

I would request that all information pertaining to and including tenders, pricing and completion of any contracts also be sent at your convenience.

Yours faithfully,

M. Thrane

Dear M. Thrane,

Thank you for your information request. We will reply to you as soon as possible and in any case by 2 February.

Yours sincerely,

Rhoda Davidson
Information Officer

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Dear M Thrane,

We have been searching our records for information that meets the terms of your recent request to us:

“Please provide me with full details and methodology - including preliminary, summary and final reports relating to the monitoring of Manx Shearwaters and investigations into the Brown Rat on the Isle of Rum.

I would request that all information pertaining to and including tenders, pricing and completion of any contracts also be sent at your convenience.”

The Manx Shearwater colony Rum has been monitored since the 1970s so we hold a substantial amount of information. Our initial searches have found at least 400 documents, many containing multiple pages, that would need to be reviewed for relevance to your request and to identify any sensitive information (such as personal data). We currently do not have the resources to review such a large volume of information. We would be able to supply you with a subset of the information and I have included some information below that explains the monitoring of Manx shearwaters on Rum to help identify that subset.

The following is a list of projects that relate to rats and Manx shearwater on Rum:

1) a project carried out by Wildlife Management International Limited from 2006 - 2010 on monitoring rat abundance at the shearwater colony.
2) A project carried out by Food and Environment Health Agency/Animal and Plant Health Agency from 2010-2014 on the role of rat predation in determining shearwater breeding success.
3) A PhD funded by SNH
4) An SNH rat monitoring project started in 2016.
5) Two surveys carried out at the shearwater colony; one in 1995 and one in 2000.
6) Ongoing monitoring of the breeding success of the colony.

We can provide tender information, methodologies, results, interim and final reports where available for these projects. For the ongoing monitoring of breeding success we can provide the methodology, results and reports from 1995 to present day.

We also hold various internal correspondence and other documents about shearwater on Rum but we would need to know what period of time you are interested in to provide parameters to search this information.

Could you please consider the information above and pick two or three of these projects that are most relevant to you? Alternatively you could define a time period (e.g. 2 – 3 years) and we could provide you with information that covers that period.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions about this.

Your sincerely

Jennifer Ryles
Information Officer

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Dear Jennifer Ryles,

Thank you for your response requesting clarification of the information sought. As my request is quite far reaching, I understand that you will be keen to minimise the effort involved in providing some of the data requested. As such, can you provide the following:

1) a project carried out by Wildlife Management International Limited from 2006 - 2010 on monitoring rat abundance at the shearwater colony.
2) A project carried out by Food and Environment Health Agency/Animal and Plant Health Agency from 2010-2014 on the role of rat predation in determining shearwater breeding success.
3) A PhD funded by SNH

Final reports for each of these 'projects' would be of use and therefore assumably easy to provide?

4) An SNH rat monitoring project started in 2016.

Details of the results of this and a methodology summary would be appreciated.

5) Two surveys carried out at the shearwater colony; one in 1995 and one in 2000.

I have no need for this information as it is openly available.

6) Ongoing monitoring of the breeding success of the colony.

A simple summary of the breeding figures would suffice here. Assumably, these can be derived from the local Isle of Rum staff or perhaps exist in some format that could be easily amended?

If there is a way to search tender documents via the SNH website, then I am happy to attempt to do this. I am particularly interested in the amount of funding afforded to Seabird monitoring, specifically Manx Shearwaters for the years 2006-2016.

As for internal correspondence, I will, on receipt of the above, review what is sent and decide if a further request for more information will be necessary.

I hope you will be able to assist and many thanks for your time and effort in doing so.

Yours sincerely,

M Thrane

Dear M Thrane,

Thank you for getting back to us so quickly.

We will reply to your request as soon as possible and in any case by 24 February.

Yours sincerely,

Rhoda Davidson
Information Officer

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2 Attachments

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater SNH Response A2211983.pdf

    75K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Shearwater Productivity Reports 2006 13.pdf

    21.6M Download View as HTML

Dear M Thane,

We have completed our response to your request. We have found around 30 megabytes of information that meets the terms of your request. I have attached to this email our response letter and the biggest attachment. I will send the remaining attachments in a second email.

Please let us know if you have any problems receiving the information.

Yours sincerely

Jennifer Ryles
Information Officer

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10 Attachments

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater FERA Contract 30516 Brown Rats and Breeding 201 13 documents.pdf

    5.4M Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Manx shearwater Rum productivity data 1995 2014.xls

    43K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Manx shearwater productivity results 2016.xlsx

    11K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Rum 2015 Productivity Monitoring Hallival.xlsx

    15K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Statement of Requirements The Ecology of Brown Rats on Rum.pdf

    147K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    A2211960.pdf

    1.7M Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Tracking Plate Record Sheet August 2016.xlsx

    15K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater Tracking Plate Record Sheet June 2016.xlsx

    15K Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater WMIL Contract 17412 Brown Rats.pdf

    6.4M Download View as HTML

  • Attachment

    FOI Freedom of Information Request M Thane Rats Rum Manx Shearwater WMIL Contract 27397 Rat Abundance.pdf

    1.5M Download View as HTML

Dear M Thane,

As detailed in my earlier email. Here is the remaining information we located in response to your request.

Please let us know if you have any problems receiving this information.

Yours sincerely

Jennifer Ryles
Information Officer

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