Cairngorms National Park

It's just the first time that the actual... birth has been captured um so it's helping understand more about you know their behavior in labor and how they look after their young in those early days so that's something really special that we haven't seen before So Saving Wildcats is an organisation we've spoken about before.

So this is in relation to the Scottish Wildcat Conservation Programme, which involves captive breeding and wild releases into Cairngorms National Park.

So I think you mentioned this earlier, Obi, but to date they've released a total of 46 captive bred cats into the Highlands since 2023.

And I don't know if they really have an idea of how many wild kittens there are, but they have recorded the wild kittens on the camera traps out in the Cairngorms, which is so special seeing them.

Beautiful.

Cairngorms National Park.

It is the most wonderful, beautiful place to live and to visit.

And you live in the village, do you?

A

month before Stourbridge, part of the Cairngorms National Park caught fire.

Andrew Baxter is the MSP for Sky, La Carba and Badenoch.

We had a wildfire in the Glenmore area of the Cairngorm National Park that started mid-July and initially the response was that it was contained, which suggests that it was under control and that there was nothing for the public to worry about, which was in complete opposite to what people were telling me and others on the ground, that it was far from contained.

Can you be any more specific than that?

Well, we're near the Cairngorms National Park.

Very close to that.

And we're by a loch.

Enter Scottish Adventure Planning Montage here.

Fast forward through an 11-hour flight, several episodes of your podcast, including the one set in Cairngorms National Park, the live show at the castle where, of course, I wore a princess dress and plaid, walking up and down the Royal Mile in more plaid, and then we end up in the magical Isle of Skye.

I am a huge Outlander fan and have always wanted to visit the Isle of Skye, and since I was in charge of planning this trip, that was happening.

We visit a few castles along the way, Eilean Donan, highly recommended, and take a gorgeous hike through a place called the...

And, uh, and I fell in love with the Highlands too.

I always felt at home when I started driving up, passing, like, the Cairngorms National Park.

Uh-huh.

So it was kind of my dream to move up here, and it came true, which was fantastic.

Yeah.

Now, the fallout of the wildfires in the Cairngorms National Park is still being discussed this week.

Uh, a new report by Scottish Land and Estates highlights the risk of future fires, as well as the huge volunteer effort involved in tackling it.

On Thursday, there was a ministerial statement from Justice Secretary Neil Gray, which stated, "The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be able to put helicopters on standby when there is a heightened risk of wildfires."