Stewart Rowden

Background

About Stewart Rowden

I am a licenced bat ecologist with Abricon Ltd. I carry out assessments of sites for presence of bats and other protected species, and supervise roof strips under licence. I write reports and submit licence applications. During the active season I lead teams at night carrying out bat surveys- starting at sunset or couple of hours before dawn. I worked for Natural England processing European Protected Species licence applications. Prior to that I worked for Natural Resources Wales (welsh equivalent of Natural England, Environment Agency and Forestry Commission combined) responding to planning consultations. Assessing them for impacts on Designated sites, Protected species, protected landscapes, flood risk and environmental pollution. Used to be a part-time conservation officer as well looking after and our liason officer with WWBIC Local Record Center when we were CCW. Got to work on a range of projects including a new section of the A477 being constructed, and our strategic approach to cumulative impacts from wind turbines. Previous to that I've been a volunteer with Avon Wildlife Trust dealing with planning and Biodiversity Partnership work, a mortgage enforcement officer for a law firm. Before that I was an environmental casework officer for the Planning Inspectorate, and a VAT Advice officer with HM Customs and Excise. And a long long time ago I was an Archaeologist. Outside of work my wife Kiri Green and I have been rescuing, caring for, and rehabilitating bats at home since 2011, with assistance from North Devon Bat Care and Wiltshire Bat Care. We are registered carers with Bat Conservation Trust and are BCT's bat care out of hours contacts for our region. We were Avon Bat Care, and set up Bristol Bat Rescue as a charity. Myself, Kiri and Ashley have been the only registered Trustees of Bristol Bat Rescue. Apart from rescuing and caring for bats we also help protect the public from catching rabies from bats (EBLV 1 and 2). And we do a lot of public education work- we give talks for universities, schools, wildlife groups and children groups with our education bats (kept under licence from Natural England) and run bat walks. I was on the Avon Bat Group committee for a few years, leading on public education. I also worked in Secret World's hospital room with a range of wildlife, and we monitored a site for dormice as part of the NDMP. I have NE dormouse and bat licences (class 2). Have one referee for newt licence, and have a decent amount of knowledge and survey experience for otters, water voles, badgers, barn owls etc.