Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust marks anniversary with £1m appeal

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust manages almost 100 sites including Donna Nook which is home to a colony of grey seals

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust is launching a £1m appeal to mark its 75th anniversary.

The charity said the Nature Recovery Fund would be spent on securing more land for conservation, saving species and habitats and inspiring people to connect with nature.

It was founded in 1948 and took on its first nature reserve at Gibraltar Point near Skegness in December that year.

There are now nearly 100 reserves managed by the trust across the county.

Sites include Donna Nook, which is home to a grey seal colony where around 55,000 visitors come to see the pups born every winter.

The Willow Tree Fen reserve near Spalding has been converted from farmland and in 2020 saw the return of a breeding pair of common cranes, the first time the birds had been seen in Lincolnshire for more than 400 years, the trust said.

Thousands of people visit Donna Nook each winter to catch a glimpse of the seals and their pups

The trust's Chief Executive Paul Learoyd said: "We are delighted to be celebrating our 75th birthday and it provides a wonderful moment to look back on all that the Trust has achieved in that time,"

"However, with nature in crisis, our plans for the next period in the Trust's history have to be ambitious.

"It will be a huge challenge if we are to reverse the declines in Lincolnshire's wildlife and that is why the Nature Recovery Fund is so vital."

The trust said one of the fund's aims would be to mitigate the effects of climate change on Lincolnshire's wildlife.