An event intended to raise awareness of local wildlife at Peel Park on March 25 and 26 was met with great appreciation from the Salford community.

‘Eyes Peeled for Nature’ ran in collaboration with the Salford Rangers and the University of Salford Wildlife Society. 

There were multiple sessions the event offered such as the ‘River Irwell Birdlife Photography’ session and the Peel Park ‘Nature Walk’ session.

University of Salford, Wildlife Lecturer, Dr. Jamie Gundry said:  “There were lots of enthusiastic people and hopefully people will learn to come here in their own time and explore.

“There’s lots of amazing stuff on our doorstep,  there’s foxes, there’s hedgehogs, there’s a lot of birdlife and there’s a lot here and people should realize that.”

Caitlin Cross, Chair of University of Salford’s Wildlife Society, said: “We had a good mix of students and other people from the community at the event so I think it has brought the community together.”

“We have had a lot of good feedback from people which is great to hear.”

Image of Wildlife Society Chair, Caitlin Cross

The main purpose of the event was to raise awareness of climate change and its current effect on wildlife.

Ms Cross said: “The main focus is biological recording, we’re trying to encourage people to make biological records of the different species they find.

Dr. Jamie Gundry at the River Irwell in Peel Park

“This is really important because we can then feed it into the national database and it can then be used to inform conservation management strategies, so it will really help and benefit wildlife.

“At least if we’ve got all these records we can monitor the change and do as much as possible before it gets too bad.”

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