Wild ferrets in Guernsey the focus of year-long research project
A conservation group has been spending a year studying wild ferrets after securing government funds.
The results of a year-long research project are expected to reveal more about Guernsey's wild ferret population than ever, project leaders have said.
Using money from the government's Strategy for Nature fund, La Société Guernesiaise has been tracking the animals by using specialist camera equipment.
The conservation charity said it plotted where devices should be located in areas where ferrets had been known to attack different wildlife, such as La Claire Mare Nature Reserve in St Peters, had taken thousands of photos and the pictures were now being examined.
La Société said it had been aware of the feral ferret population for some time, but "didn't know anything about them".
The charity was one of 11 local projects to be given funding from the Strategy for Nature last year , and applied for cash to buy 15 camera traps.
The traps were motion-activated and used to take photos or videos of wildlife and people without anyone having to be there to operate them, project leaders said.
Leah Cottell, who has been leading the study, said the process had been "incredibly time-consuming" but she had learned a lot.
"I knew that we had ferrets on the island, but we didn't really know anything about them," she told BBC Guernsey.
"They seem to like being around water sites because they like eating things like eggs, and so they'll go for the nests of ground-nesting birds."
However, despite the numbers, ferrets were not native to Guernsey, she added.
"They are an invasive species, and the feeling is that it's probably due to releases from domestic ferrets.
"They look like their polecat wild counterparts, so they have been out there for a very long time; or ferret owners in the 1980s might have let some go and over time it's expanded."
Cottell added it would take "months and months" to sift through all the photos, but the charity would write up a report of its findings.
The next round of Strategy for Nature funding is open, and people wishing to apply for money had until 25 October, fund bosses said.
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