Fonds GB 0210 WELKITE - Welsh Red Kite Archive

Dorothy Raikes of Bwlch, co. Brec., was in charge of kite protection arrangements in Wales from 1938 to 1949. She made very few details of records available, even to the RSPB who provided the greater part of the financial support for nest bounties etc. The baton passed to Captain and Mrs H. R. H. Vaughan of Nantymwyn House, Rhandirmwyn, 1949-1971. They established the Kite Committee in 1949. By 1960 they had reformed the Kite Committee annual meeting, which had formerly been semi-public, reducing it in the interests of confidentiality to those directly concerned with kite protection. In 1971, after the Vaughans' retirement, the Kite Committee was again reformed, the chair alternating annually between the senior RSPB and Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) members, the other organisation providing the secretary and secretarial facilities. In 1994, the kite population having reached 100 breeding pairs, the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), the successor to the NCC in Wales, decided that it could no longer afford to contribute towards the cost of monitoring all kite nests, and in 1995 the RSPB followed suit. The Welsh Kite Trust was established in 1995 in part to replace the CCW and RSPB funding "for monitoring, protection, research and public education about kites in Wales".