AFTER travelling 7,000km in a powered paraglider from Arctic Russia, a wildlife researcher has touched down back in Slimbridge.

Sacha Dench, a Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetland’s Trust researcher, had followed the migration route of Bewick’s swans.

The mission was to gain a greater understanding of why the species’ numbers are declining.

After flying across the arctic tundra and dodging blizzards and thunderstorms, the stint from Membury Airfield in Berkshire to a field behind Slimbridge Primary School was one of the most tricky, with several postponements due to weather conditions.

Upon landing, Sacha said: “We found that in some of the areas where hunting is happening, the locals basically said, ‘we thought the birds were just on the protected list because people love swans’, that there’s just a romantic connection with swans, not just because the numbers are in decline.

“I didn’t find anyone who wasn’t touched by the fact that they were declining.

“We’ve learnt where the main wetlands are at threat, it’s very easy to see from the air where there’s constant encroachment into the edges.

“We’ve met conservationists who felt like maybe their political situation made their work impossible, we’ve shown them that there’s friends across Europe, you just have to keep working, even post Brexit.

“We’ve also inspired loads of kids along the flyway, and that’s really important to prepare the next generation, some of those kids are in communities where they hunt every morning for food for their families so it’s also the next generation of potentially more responsible hunters that we’ve inspired.

The journey saw Sacha cross 11 countries and her crossing of the channel made her the first woman to do so by paramotor.

It wasn’t all plain sailing – or flying – for Sacha, she endured -25 degree temperatures and dislocated her knee on one of her many take-offs, which led to an ingenious conversion of the paramotor into a paratrike, a combination of a trike with a glider.

The first of the migrating Bewick’s swan that the Flight of the Swan’s team were tracking, Maisie, arrived at Slimbridge on Wednesday, November 23.

Illegal hunting, newly erected power lines - most importantly the loss of wetlands - all play a part in the swan’s dramatic decline in numbers, which have almost halved over the last 20 years.

Sacha said: “A lot of the birds are being shot at, and it’s not just happening in remote areas, but all the hunting pressures wouldn’t be so big, if we had decent sized wetlands left.

“Hunting is something we’ve got to do something about, but we’ve got to bring the wetlands back.

“The swans have got to constantly adapt, they fly from wetland to wetland.

“It’s around roost-sites where powerlines are a problem, we lost one of our transmitter swans on our Spring migration this year, Marlana Two, because of a powerline in Germany.”

Sacha’s journey isn’t quite over yet, she’ll head to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday, December 20 to hand over a petition signed by 13,500 individuals asking for a commitment to create 100,000 hectares of new wetland habitat as safe refuge and feeding for swans and other wildlife.

“We’re trying to show there’s public support for Bewick’s conservation, but the main thing that we’ve got to do in the UK is put back the wetlands, if you do that you’ll help not just the Bewick’s swan, but other waterbirds, animals and flooding.

"I definitely think they can bounce back, we just need enough momentum and to do things reasonably fast, watch this space.”

Peter Cranswick, part of the conservation team at WWT, said: “Getting a swans-eye view of the migration has shown us that to make a difference you have to start at a grass roots level.

“Getting involved in the communities along the flightpath, people are eager to talk to you.

“In Russia we found out that a key reason for them shooting swans is that they believe they ward away other birds like geese and ducks, it’s sometimes locally held beliefs that are part of the problem.

“In the last 400 years we have lost 90 per cent of our wetlands, they’re often drained for agricultural land or for housing – but healthy wetlands are good for all of us all.”

For more information go to, www.flightoftheswans.org