Europa: Endangered National Wildlife

Description

This year’s PostEurop stamp theme is ‘Endangered National Wildlife’, and we are delighted to depict eight species found in the Bailiwick of Guernsey,

These stunning stamps, which are the work of Guernsey-born artist Wendy Bramall, feature species that are locally registered from critically endangered through to near threatened.

PostEurop is inviting all postal fans and philatelic enthusiasts to join us in this awareness campaign and promote this year's beautiful entries featuring "endangered national wildlife". You can cast a vote for your favourite stamp of this 2021 EUROPA Stamps Competition, on www.posteurop.org/europa2021.

The stamps:

The European herring gull used to be Guernsey’s most common gull; however the species is now listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, the scaly cricket, also known as the Atlantic Beach Cricket, is one of the rarest species of cricket. They were previously only recorded in four UK locations but in recent years have been found in Guernsey, Herm and Sark.

Basking sharks are the world’s second-largest fish. These graceful giants are listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and are now protected in EU waters and under some international agreements. They are mostly seen in or near the Hurd Deep, an underwater valley northwest of the Channel Islands and the deepest point in the English Channel.

The once common European eel was often caught to make eel pies and jellied eels, but some estimates show that numbers have declined to less than one percent of historic levels and are now classed as Critically Endangered.

Guernsey and Jersey are the only places where the Near Threatened Black-backed meadow ant can be found in the British Isles. An Ant Action Plan was implemented in Guernsey in 2018 to tackle its rapid decline. They can be spotted along the island’s southern cliff paths between Pleinmont and Icart and in field banks close to the cliffs.

Harbour porpoise are shy and elusive marine animals that spend very little time at the surface and are a particularly difficult species to monitor. Guernsey has a small and vulnerable local population, and the species is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

The coastal habitat of the orange and brown chequered Glanville fritillary butterfly is disappearing at an alarming rate. More common in Alderney than anywhere else in the British Isles, it is making a comeback in Guernsey and can be spotted on warm days on the island’s cliff sides. 

Porbeagle shark, distant relatives of the great white shark, are occasionally seen in Bailiwick waters and are listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 2020 two Guernsey pollock fishermen made national news when they came across a huge 300 lbs porbeagle shark, 12 miles off Cobo Bay.

Specification