Episode 9 Landward

land would, -- to Landward. I will be looking at a plan to save the

Scottish wildcat. Here is what else is coming up: The secret weapon in

the battle against a dangerous and invasive plant. At the moment we

just spray. This is much more sustainable.

The hard manual labourer of 19th-century female farmworkers.

male final World Cup -- and male farmworker would have to bring along

a female worker. And we meet one of three final amateur weather

forecasters. The power of the storm. I remember seeing objects fly

through the air. The Scottish wildcat is seriously

endangered. The cats are so elusive no one knows how many are left in

the wild. Their genetic purity is also under threat because of

interbreeding with MS dig and feral cats. So what does the future hold

for the Scottish wildcat eMac? In the world of conservation, all

interested parties have been getting together around a table recently to

formulate an emergency action plan and they all agree that identifying

a pure Scottish wildcat is key to that plan. I am here with Dr Andrew

Kitchener from the National Museums of Scotland who for the past 25

years has been working on wildcat conservation and specialises in

identification. What are the problems with identification for

Scottish wildcat? It should be straightforward but for the last 100

years or more, while cats have been hybridising with domestic cats and

then those crosses have been back mating with domestic cats. And Haug

is that get in the way with conservation? There are very few

wildcat left and they are being hybridised out of existence. If we

look at this very nice wildcat skin from about 1931, you will see that

there stripes on the back of the neck here. It is like someone has

taken their fingers and wiggle them and spread at the markings. There

are two very distinct shoulder stripes and this dorsal stripe

running down to the root of the tail. And it never actually goes on

to detail. But with the domestic cats, the/ art much straighter. --

the stripes are much straighter, and the dorsal stripe carries on to the

tail. Can we tell wildcat is purely from the markings? Some of the

hybrids closely resemble the pure wildcat so it is better to use

genetic testing. What was your role in the setting up of the genetic

test? I am collaborating with Paul O'Donoghue at Chester and I found

the best wildcats and we took skin samples and Paul has extracted the

DNA. And that will be key in identifying the pure species?

it will underpin most of the conservation action we can do.

Unless you can identify what wildcat is, the rest will be meaningless.

I have come all the way to the Aird nam Muchan peninsula in the Western

Highlands to meet Paul O'Donoghue from the University of Chester, the

man who has just completed this highly anticipated genetic test. And

we are out to trap wildcats. So is this what we are looking for?

this is one of our camera traps. It has been here for four months. We

know there is a really good cat in this area. Why are we trapping

cats? The challenge is on to find the last few remaining wildcats. We

know there are some in this area. We have the camera traps out to give as

a guide as to where the cats may be and we follow that up with live

trapping. Do you reckon here?This spot here. It is almost a natural

runway there. It is nice and secluded. The cat should feel

secure. We need to bed this trap in here. We clear away some of the

brush. Get the trap in. The challenge is to make this look as

naturalistic as possible. How did you go about developing the test?

Rumack week collected the best museum reference samples of Scottish

wildcat and screened tens of thousands of genetic markers across

the whole genome and we selected the markers only ever found in Scottish

wildcats and never in domestic cats. Why specifically Aird nam

Muchan, then? Loom that it is effectively a mainland -- it is

effectively an island. We can create a haven. What you do with the cats

you trap? If it is a hybrid it will be neutered and returned. It is --

if it is a pure wildcat we will monitor it. Will this work alongside

other measures? Unless a conservation activity eels directly

with stopping hybridisation, it is not useful. -- deals directly.

There are lots of initiatives to save the Scottish wildcat, from

captive breeding programmes to public awareness campaigns to

neutering domestic tomcats. There is even an offer to clone the animal

from the people who cloned Dolly the Sheep. All these efforts could help

save the iconic animal from extinction but the first thing we

have to do is establish what is and isn't a wildcat. Now that test is

available it is time to act fast for the Scottish wildcat disappears

forever. As a nation, we are upset with the

weather. Some more so than others. Over the next three weeks BBC

Scotland weather presenter Judith Ralston will be meeting three

amateur meteorologists to find out I am here in Lennoxtown just to the

north of Glasgow to meet 30-year-old Mark Vogan who was inspired by the

great storm of 1987. He runs his own inviting me. It is a pleasure.What

was it about that storm of 1987 that inspired you to become passionate

about whether? I was four years of age so I was still quite young but

it stands firmly in my mind, the sheer power of the storm itself. I

remember looking out of the window and seeing hadn't objects flying

through the air. There was just some sort of a seed form there that

developed my interest, my passion for the weather today. How do you

actually do your forecasting work? There is a whole bunch of different

websites to look at the different computer models. I read the models

to try to understand what the weather is going to do further down

the road. These models are taken from all over the world. There are

about 30-odd different computer models updated several times a day.

I have developed a website which I look at, your everyday weather, but

I also look at the week ahead, ten days out, even a month ahead.

long do you spend each day forecasting? Probably about six

hours! You are still married?Yes! As a challenge, we have decided to

do is forecast separately and then compare forecasts. The 19th of April

is the day we have set, tomorrow. Here is my forecast. High pressure

is building in nicely across Scotland. In Glasgow, a cold start

initially but then lighter wind than we have seen. The spells of sunshine

and highs of around about 10 Celsius. My forecast is that we will

see an improving picture over the course of this week. High pressure

will build in. That means Glasgow and the West of Scotland will enjoy

some good spells of sunshine. Temperatures in the low teens.

have the answers. So the bare-bones of it are, basically, a dry, sunny

start. On the whole staying dry. We saw a general temperature of around

about 10 Celsius with a spike to 12 Celsius. I went for low teens but I

suppose a spike of 12 degrees is not too bad. It is good. So next week I

will be in Dundee, meeting a professor of bioinformatics who

keeps records of the weather in the area.

Still to come: Nick celebrates plans as part of the year of natural

Scotland. Making people aware of the wonderful flora that this country

has to offer is what this project is all about. And the 19th-century

female farm slaves. They would be out there in the turnip fields. At

harvest time they would be out stooking corn. So they have easy

lives. Giant hogweed is a major problem on

our riverbanks. The harmful plant spreads aggressively and its sap can

lead to painful burns on the skin and even blindness. Now a pilot

project on the River Deveron is using sheep to tackle the problem.

This is giant hogweed, a non-native ornamental plant introduced into

gardens across Britain in the 19th century. Since then, it has

colonised unmanaged land across the country but it is especially

successful alongside riverbanks and watercourses like here, on the River

Deveron. We have a juvenile hogweed plant

here that has come through this spring. These are the remnants of

the monsters? Yes, that one is about nine foot. What is the problem with

it? It out -competes native biodiversity. It over shades the

river and when it dies back it leaves the river is open. Giant

hogweed is a phototoxic plant. The sap reacts with sunlight and causes

nasty gesturing to skin and if it gets into contact with the eyes, it

can cause blindness. It was hell. I got burned across my hand and my

forehead and for at least four a fortnight I got this dreadful

itching which have to be controlled with a steroid cream. But I was

literally unable to sleep for a fortnight. We have heard of children

running into the mature plants and of actually going into anaphylactic

shock. So it can be very nasty. just a few months - time these plans

will turn into monsters and this place will be turning into a jungle.

It is illegal to plant or to cause giant hogweed to grow. But getting

rid of it is not easy. For years, weedkiller has been the main

the arsenal. It is time to unleash weapons of maaaass destruction. The

lack faced sheep can eat the hogweed. The question is, do they

have a taste for it? Studies showed it can take a year for them to

acclimatise to it. The blackface sheep, because of the pigment in

their skin, was very rarely, if not at all affected. Why would the

pigmentation make a difference? the darker skin, the sap reacts with

light and it has just shown that in these trials they are less likely to

be affected. We have been spraying hogweed for ten or 11 years. Some

areas are improving. But then we are also finding areas cropping up we

did not know about. The seeds can be dormant for 20 years-plus. At the

moment we just spray and spray. This is a much more sustainable thing, if

you see on the programme or a story to share, send us an e-mail. The

weather here is very, very changeable but what about the

prospects for this weekend and look at Spring 2013 here in

Scotland. It was a cold one, the joint eighth coldest on record.

Probably most notably, it was very trying. -- very dry. That could

cause issues over the next few months. There is a weather front

slowly making its way from West to East so the skies will cloud over

and they will be some out pics of rain. By mid-afternoon, it is a case

of sunshine and showers. Most of those showers, not too heavy.

Slightly cloudier in the North, up towards Caithness and certainly

across the northern half of the Hebrides. If you are hillwalking or

climbing, starting off fairly cloudy but improving later on. Across

towards the eastern ranges, a reversal of fortunes. It is a

westerly for three to four and the inshore waters, moderate visibility.

Smooth seas and good visibility. Up towards Shetland, it is also a force

for. Good visibility for you as well. Rest of the afternoon into the

evening, we tend to lose the showers, some late evening

sunshine, but it could cloud over later on. Temperatures overnight

into Sunday morning, between around five and seven Celsius. The King at

Sunday, we start to see a change, high-pressure beginning to build

from the south-west. On Sunday means reasonably settled, a mixture of

clouds and some brighter skies here and there. Taking a look ahead

towards next week, keeping our eyes on that high building its way in

from the south-west, Monday is likely to be a transition day. Some

good spells of sunshine for Southern and Eastern parts of the country but

in the West, cloudier skies with outbreaks of rain, but fading. On

Tuesday, the high pressure is overhead, so settled conditions,

hardly a breath of wind and feeling really quite warm. With digital

temperatures -- we could see the temperatures into the 20s. By

Wednesday, a hint of a breakdown with something coming in off the

North Sea. Fine in the West, highs Scotland. Early in the year we

featured our top five iconic wild animals. Over the next four years

Nick is going to be finding out about some of our great plant life.

-- our next four weeks. The Royal botanic Gardens in Edinburgh are

justifiably famous for their collection of rare and exotic plants

from around the world. They also have a range of plants from closer

plants -- native flowers? This time of year, the primroses, you can't

get better than that. If we look around us in this area, there is a

very natural feel to it. Did that happen by chance, or has a lot of

effort gone into it? There has been a fair bit of effort, I think it is

harder to maintain unnatural environment within the botanic

Garden, looking after some of our more intensively cultivated areas.

Is there a danger we might lose some of our native species? I think there

is a very real danger, when you look at some of the new pests and

diseases affect thing things like ash and Scots pine, who knows what

the next ten or 15 years will hold? Inspired by the big five wildlife

project which we featured earlier in the series, the Royal botanic

Gardens Edinburgh has started its own search for Scotland's top five

plants. The whole idea is to generate an interest in our native

flora. Without the plants they wouldn't be any animals so we are

keen to ensure there is a top five client list as well. The boffins

here have come up with a shortlist of 13 native species they deem

worthy of the big five. With voting already underway, here is the

witch Elmer is at number 12. At number 11, the waterlily. Number ten

is the dog rose. At number nine, the poppy. The spear thistle is at

number eight. We have a shrub at number seven, the Goss. Heather is

at number six. The elegant silver birch is in the five. Number four is

the Roman, otherwise known as the margin ash. Number three is the

Bluebell. At number two we have the Scottish primrose. Scott -- topping

the chart is the mighty Scots pine. How do the public vote? They go onto

our website, they can choose from any of the 13 plants identified, or

if they want, make their own choice they have applied especially

important to them. Making people aware of the wonderful Florida's

country has to offer is what this project is all about. What better

way to celebrate the year of natural Scotland? Personally I be voting for

this. Next year -- week I will be learning about urbanism and finding

out how some medicine can be hard to swallow. -- herbalism.

It is hard to imagine now but in the late 19th-century female farmworkers

were treated as for more than slaves. A male farmworker, or hind,

living in a farm, was found by his conditions of employment to provide

a female Bob Walker whose work was considered as payment for the

cottage. Through the agricultural improvement

years of the 1700, farming developed into labour intensive industry

providing work for thousands. For the days of tractors and

mechanisation, farms defend -- depended on horses and a large

labour force. While the big farms of the north-east had a system which

housed single male farmworkers, in the south and east, they had the

bondage system. -- the Bondager system, where half the work force

were women. The system meant that a male worker had to bring with him

and female. That labour, provided by the woman, would secure the home for

the family for approximately one year. Who were the women, were they

family members? Most of the time, if possible, they were. If he wasn't

able to provide a family member he could go outside the family.

downside was if the hind, the Plowman, was a young man with tiny

children, the farmer still wanted his Bondager and he had to get

behind out to higher and she had to be housed with his family. That was

a problem because the cottages were tiny. So potentially had one room, a

man, his wife, children and another woman living in the house. That's

right. The system was present in the border counties. Southeast and

Scotland -- Central Scotland and Northumbria. The term Bondager meant

the bond made between the farmer and male farmworker. The term Bondager

gives you the impression that they were there against their will, they

had to work against their will. that the case? Not really, they were

hired as any worker would be hired, to work in fields. They were

sometimes called fieldworkers. They would be out there in the turnip

fields, at harvest time they would be out, and they would be busy at a

time. They would have a busy life. To carry out the hard physical

labour, they had to wear practical clothing and they had a very

distinctive outfit as models here. Just explain what they wore. They

wore this wonderful straw hats, lacquered black, and they decorated

it with this wonderful rushing around the crown. They wore a wimple

underneath the hat so if it was cold, they could wrap themselves up

a little bit. If it was dusty, they could cover their mouth as well.

course we have these boots. Good, strong boots. It was very much a

uniform for work, because they wore fashionable clothes on their Sunday

outings. As early as the 1830s, the bondage system was seen by many as a

unfeminine and degrading to female workers. There was considerable

unrest among labourers and heated debate throughout the countryside.

Its demise was brought about in part because there were growing concerns

about the number of children, basically, who were going into

family homes that were not relatives. There was a suggestion

that there was some impropriety will stop the Church of Scotland and the

Highland Society got very concerned about it. What you have to bear in

mind is that some of the young girls who were going into service, 13 or

14 years of age, they were very vulnerable. By the late 19th-century

farm workers across Scotland were trying to create a union and

eventually, in 1913, the Scottish farm servants union was created. As

a result, wages were improved and the Bondager system was ended.

system itself was brought to an end before the term Bondager was brought

to an end, so women would still refer to themselves as Bondagers but

they were being employed by the farm. They have been called the

forgotten workers, they are slightly forgotten about. Possibly in part

because it was very specific to certain areas of Scotland and the

North East of England. And possibly it is like itinerant workers, they

don't get a huge amount of attention either. It is a tendency with women

in history, working-class women, it tends be thought that their history

Bondagers. That is almost it. Coming up next week. Ravens and their

threat to young livestock. This is only one lamb, there have been

several others. An award-winning wildlife photographer. We have a