Spotlight On: Wildlife & Conservation Society

Hello, we are WildSoc!

No, we are not a society whose sole purpose is to rave and party like crazy. WildSoc actually stands for the Wildlife and Conservation Society – although we do sometimes joke we should be the David Attenborough Appreciation Society. We are a group of like-minded students who are passionate about protecting endangered species, love watching Planet Earth and want to raise the profile of wildlife conservation in St Andrews. Our committee is made up of 8 student members from a variety of backgrounds and years including myself as President, Vice-President Jackie, Treasurer Ellie, Secretary Molly, Events Officer Gal, Publicity Officer Grania, Fundraising and Campaigns Officer Caroline and Honorary member Rowan.  

Now our major event that we love to plug is our David Attenborough Documentary Nights. Think Netflix and chill but with David Attenborough’s dulcet tones guiding you through breath-taking places to see incredible wildlife. Again, maybe we should change our name to I Heart AttenboroughSoc… Anyway, we put on Planet Earth, Africa, Blue Planet – you know, anything with Sir David in it. These events are usually very popular and we’ll be running these every so often throughout the year – keep your eyes peeled!  

In addition to these Doc Nights, we also like to get a few guest speakers in every year to talk about wildlife conservation issues. Examples of topics have been the extraordinary migrations of songbirds to Africa and efforts to save the Sungazer lizard.  

We’re also hoping to celebrate Earth Hour by getting the Union to turn all its lights off for a whole hour whilst we do a ceilidh in the dark – don’t worry, we’ll be lighting you up like glow-worms so nothing can go wrong. Besides, it’s a ceilidh! Stumbling around is all part of the event!  

Don’t forget that it’s Hallowe’en today too. We did a Bat Walk where we ventured out to Lade Braes (in fancy dress!) to look for these cool critters with a bat detector. Don’t worry, they won’t bite – I hope… 

We’re also raising money for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which we’ll be accomplishing through your membership and bake sales. We’re also not restricted to St Andrews, as we’ll be running our awesome Isle of May trip next May to see puffins, guillemots, razorbills, gannets, seals and much much more. This is a must-do trip whilst you’re in St Andrews! We’ll hopefully be putting together some more trips too in the meantime to places such as the Isle of Mull, Cairngorms and Bass Rock. 

We’d love for you to come along to one of our events and join WildSoc. We only cost £3 a year and for that you get money off our trips, merchandise like hoodies, discounts on certain events and you contribute to supporting our conservation charity of the year. If you’d like to meet like-minded people who care about wildlife, the natural world and conservation issues then come along to our events – email [email protected] to sign up to our mailing list or find our Facebook page (Wildlife and Conservation Society University of St Andrews). If you’re super keen to join the committee – let us know too, we’d especially love to have a First Year Rep! 

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