Deerly Beloved

The first mission for Bill’s team takes them to Hampshire, specifically the A35 in the New Forest, which is one of the most notorious areas for deer and vehicle accidents. On average one of these furry critters is killed by a car every week.

So, what can be done? Well the first step that Bill’s team take is to study the behaviour of the deer in the area while at the same time study the layout of the road itself. By doing this they uncover a specific accident black spot on a fast bend at which point tall trees obscure sight lines for both deer and motorist.

Unfortunately this site is rich pickings for the deer who need to cross the road to forage, hence the vast amount of fatal collisions. However the team discover a partially hidden underpass that is unused. Could this be the solution? The team start clearing and landscaping the underpass before the real question: how to get the deer to use this new route?

Badgerwatch

Work begins on a new housing development in Staffordshire but before the construction is properly underway, a family of badgers are exposed to be greatly at risk; it appears that if these new homes are built, they will lose theirs.

Bill and his team establish that the badgers’ home is a Main Sett, meaning that it is permanently lived in, making the situation all the more serious; the loss of a Main Sett can be disastrous for a badger as the animals may not be able to re-establish themselves.

An immediate solution of building an artificial badgers’ sett some distance from the housing development proves easier said than done as they have to pick a spot within the badgers' home range that won't be affected by the new houses.

Also into the mix is the fact that if this new sett is too close to an already existing badger territory then the introduction of another family could provoke a badger war! And, with the date to begin construction on the housing development, the clock is well and truly ticking!

Snake in the Grass

Another animal re-housing is on the cards for the team in this episode, filmed in Cumbria; this time an entire population of adders and common lizards have to be moved as their home looks set to be destroyed by the widening of a major road. The A74 is a notorious black spot and is being expanded from four lanes to six to reduce the number of accidents.

However, this widening will destroy the surrounding verges, and by doing so also eradicating the homes of a large number of these increasingly rare reptiles.

Once a suitable relocation plan is devised, namely moving the reptiles to a local peat moss site a little further up the road, it is soon discovered that the site has its own family of adders and introducing another would be unwise. Soon however a more suitable site several miles away is discovered.
While work begins on a ‘lizard corral’ needed to guide the creatures to their new home the team also plan the methods by which they can actually catch the slippery customers for relocation. This is made all the more complicated by the fact that Bill hates snakes and has to face his demons in order to save them!

Irish Pine

County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland is home to local tourist spot Marble Arch Caves Centre. Unfotunately the visiting centre of this site is also permanent home to a population of pine martens who need to be moved before they chew through the electricity cables in the roof.

And so Bill and his trusty rescue team are flown over to the emerald Isle to politely persuade the pine martens to move on. Even though it proves no problem stopping the birds from ever chewing through the cables, it is soon discovered that they are also raiding the rubbish bins and pinching valuable poultry from farmers in the local area!

The first stage of the plan involves looking through marten droppings for DNA samples so as to find out exactly how many are up there. Only then can the team systematically trapping and tagging them. Unfortunately this task proves rather tricky as the wily birds avoid the traps and refuse to take the bait.

When it is finally concluded that there are far too many martens up there for the territory, the team decides to regenerate a disused quarry with plantings and nest boxes to tempt them away from the visiting centre. The question is: will they be tempted this time..?

Going Bats!

The planned construction of a major gas pipe in Slebech Park in Wales will threaten several species of bats, who have roosted is the area for centuries, including some 200 rare greater horseshoe bats. 21 local hedgerows will be breached by the pipeline’s construction, which the bats use for navigation. Without these hedgerows, the bewildered bats risk starvation.

Discovering which hedgerows the bats need is a tricky business and the team enlist the help of experienced bat detectives in the form of ecological consultancy Cresswell Associates. Together with the help of pipeline owners National Grid, they set up mist nets on various flight paths to catch bats for radio tagging.

Once the important flight paths are identified, the team set about a long-term plan to save the bats. Firstly they have to persuade the bats to stay around Slebech Park by creating a pond to encourage plenty of insects, the bats’ natural source of food.

Another plan is the slightly more bizarre construction of a hedge on wheels for the pipeline workers to wheel to place over the gaps they cause in the hedges during the day. That way at night the bats won’t know the difference and come morning they wheel the hedge away and continue working!

Operation Dormice Rescue

In this episode, in order to reunite separated populations of dormice, Bill and his team really have to think outside the box. The problem is, these lovable rodents live high in the trees and never move around at ground level. However, planning development is clearing away British woodland, causing gaps that these mice can never cross.

Dormice populations that are split up by these actions could be too small to healthily sustain themselves, ultimately leading to genetic inbreeding and disease. And so to the rescue Bill and the team travel to a dormice site in Cheddar, Somerset, where they have to span a 25-metre gap in the woodland canopy to reunite a population of split dormice.

When it is realised that replanting trees is not an option, the guys decide to build a mesh bridge for that will tempt these cautious and alert little creatures across the great divide.

In a great feat of engineering the team have to design and develop a bridge that is simple and sturdy, as well as practical enough to ensure that the Highways Agency can build similar bridges for future development sites.

Puffins in Need

To combat the crashing population of puffins on the island of Craigleith, a mile offshore from North Berwick in Scotland, the team are sent in to determine exactly why this is happening given that the species is flourishing on the neighbouring islands.

After concluding that the decrease numbers is just too great to attribute their disappearance to being picked off by birds of prey, a closer inspection of the island’s vegetation reveals that the landscape is dotted with tree mallow plants.

These plants can grow up to three metres in height and are blocking entrances to the burrows which serve as breeding areas for the puffins. Because of this the puffins are being forced out into the open, leaving them vulnerable to attack by gulls.

So, the team decide that the obvious solution is to remove the plants at the root, but this in turn can cause soil erosion which is also detrimental to the puffins’ environment as it prevents them from burrowing, so an alternative plan of cutting down the mallow plants is put into effect.

With encroaching storms and impeding visits from seals to the island giving birth, can the team get the job done before the conditions become to precarious for them to stay. And so another race against time begins…

Otters

An entire breeding population of otters is at risk in Newcastle due to a rash of deaths on the busy A1 at Seaton Burn. With so many cubs run over the otters living at nearby Big Waters lake could be wiped out forever. Who you gonna call? Bill Bailey of course!

The team have to work out first of all if the otters can be stopped from crossing the road. Sadly it is soon discovered that the otters are feeding on trout that are only found downstream on the other side of the road from their home. As it provided them with an essential food source, other steps have to be taken.

Clearly the only option is to provide the otters with safe passage so the team plot the exact point on the road where the like to cross. Ironically the location is just above a culvert under the A1 that the otters should be using, yet for some reason they aren’t doing so.

It transpires that when there is heavy rainfall the culvert gets full of running water that can drown an otter and by coincidence they go after the trout only when after the rains come; finding the culvert full of water, the otters climb the banks and cross the A1 instead.

To combat the problem, the teams dredge the stream either side of the culvert to regulate water the flow of water, while building a steel otter bridge that allows the otters to walk through the culvert without even dipping their paws in the water!

Barn Owls

This time the team are down in the depths of Devon to solve another crisis in the form of a collapsing barn that has been home to barn owls for centuries. The situation is made worse by the fact that it is just too expensive to repair the barn, so the team have to think of another solution.

As barn owls are very particular about where they nest, this isn’t going to be easy. Building height and access are real deal breakers when it comes to a barn owl deciding whether to nest there, especially given that they will stay there for generations.

The Wild Thing team soon discovers that there are no other suitable barns in the area so they decide to shoot every single owl. Only kidding – as if they’d do that!

The team opt to build a purpose-built barn owl refuge close to the existing barn, which is a rather radical solution as there are only two other barn owl refuges in Britain and they've had only a certain amount of success. Still, desperate times mean desperate measures.

Tales from the Riverbank

The final rescue operation for Bill and his team sends them to the thousand year old Leeds Castle in Kent to find out why a once thriving water vole populace is now on the decline. Britain's fastest-declining mammal, the population has fallen by at least 80 per cent in the last 15 years.

The team conduct a massive vole survey and the findings of which show that many factors have lead to their decline, including disappearing habitat, changes in the way waterways are used and of course, attacks from predators.

It transpires that at Leeds Castle a huge area of bank-side is lacking the necessary vegetation that is not only relied on by the voles for food but also makes the little mites exposed and vulnerable to attacks. It also doesn’t help that the castle’s old water system causes the banks to be eroded by flooding, making them uninhabitable for voles to did their burrows.

Having confirmed that there is no evidence of the American mink, which is the water vole's number one predator, the team begin restoring vegetation on the banks while also constructing a new sluice gate system to control water levels.

Sounds simple right? Well not so as a temporary dam built to keep the water at bay while they work causes the lake to fill up incredibly quickly and, you’ve guessed it, yet another race against time has begun!