Six Months on St Kilda
from Costing the Earth Hosted by BBC Radio 4
Abandoned by its entire population in 1930, St Kilda has been uninhabited ever since. What's it like to spend six months with the birds on one of Britain's most isolated islands? Conor McKinney is a naturalist and broadcaster with what might be- depending on your personality- either the best job in the world or the worst. St Kilda is seriously isolated- it’s an archipelago of islands over one hundred miles west of the Scottish mainland and 40 miles of rough Atlantic waves away from the nearest pub or shop. That isolation means that it has a unique environment. It’s packed with rare and endemic wildlife and the owners of the island- the National Trust for Scotland- want to keep it that way. The Ministry of Defence has a construction project on the main island of Hirta and it’s Conor's job to make sure that the boats and builders that will be coming and going don’t bring unwanted guests with them- things like sea squirts, Japanese knotweed or- worst of all- the rats that would very quickly decimate the extraordinary seabirds of St Kilda. Producer: Alasdair Cross
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