Reintroductions of the critically endangered pine hoverfly in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

The pine hoverfly (Blera fallax) is a Palearctic species listed as Least Concern on the IUCN global Red List, but Critically Endangered in the UK (Ball & Morris, 2014), being restricted to just one site: a forest patch in the Cairngorms National Park (CNP). Historical records suggest the species has always been range-restricted in the UK, with all records coming from within or near CNP. Reintroduction efforts for the species are currently focused on establishing additional populations in the Strathspey area of CNP. This work follows reintroduction attempts previously reported in this series (Rotheray, 2010), which unfortunately proved unsuccessful. Building on lessons from this initial attempt and following the IUCN Guidelines for Reintroductions and other Conservation Translocations and the Scottish Code for Translocations, we have established a new breeding and reintroduction programme for this species in Scotland.