Countryfile

Isles of Scilly (26x16)

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The team head to the Isles of Scilly. Ellie Harrison looks at the problem of rats on the islands and the devastating effect they have had on the local seabird population. On one island, St Agnes, they have been running a seabird recovery programme which is the biggest island community project in the world - with all 72 residents on the island taking part. They believe that in 12 weeks they have killed 3,300 rats, so the birds will now be safe from predation. At Penzance, Matt Baker boards a plane containing 50 ducklings, aiming to get them to the only duck farm on the islands. Matt also visits the only dairy farm on the islands, which supplies the only local milk. The farmer has ten dairy cows, but again it is a good way of keeping an income coming into the farm when the flowers have finished. Ellie Harrison visits the beautiful privately owned island of Tresco, where the signs of spring are all around and they have recently imported some red squirrels. The plan is to implement the rat eradication programme on Tresco, so Ellie finds out how they are going to protect the squirrels whilst they do this. Tom Heap finds out why farming is one of the most dangerous British industries and looks at ways that we could make it safer. Adam Henson visits a dairy farm where cows are not the order of the day. In this milking parlour, 2,500 ladies produce goats' milk every day. But what makes this farm special is that the farmer here has come up with an outlet for the billy goats too.