Rise in littering and vandalism at nature reserves
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00:00During this lovely weather we want people to be able to come and enjoy Kent Wildlife Reserve's
00:03nature reserves, but the problem is when we get more people on site there's always a few people
00:08that spoil it for everyone else. We've seen an uptick in rubbish being left, dog mess,
00:16disposable barbecues, all those sorts of things. Not only does it detract from staff time to be
00:22doing their jobs to actually manage the nature reserves, it also poses a risk to wildlife as
00:28well. Wildlife can become entangled in the strings on the balloons we often find hanging around.
00:38Insects get trapped in old discarded bottles and when they build up in there they attract
00:43in other things like voles and because glass is very smooth if the bottle's at the wrong angle
00:48it can form a trap and you end up with finding sort of lots of dead voles and mice within these
00:54bottles so it can be a real problem. Because the weather's so dry at the moment anything that's
01:00discarded that could light a start a fire is a particular issue. We don't allow barbecues on
01:06our nature reserves just because of that risk really. Just a discarded few embers can set
01:12the whole place alight and we ask people to be responsible about discarding cigarette butts
01:17and again with glass bottles in this really strong sunlight all it can take is the sun shining
01:23through just a broken bit of glass it can be enough to ignite very dry grass.