Scotland’s endangered medicinal leech population has a new lease on life as the first baby leeches emerge from a groundbreaking conservation project led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).
This promising start saw twenty tiny leeches hatch last month at a specially designed breeding facility within Highland Wildlife Park near Kingussie, marking a critical milestone in efforts to restore the species in the region.
The project, launched in 2023, set out to locate, capture, and breed a group of medicinal leeches, a species now exceedingly rare in the UK and especially in Scotland, where they are only known to live in three remote locations.
Once widespread, Britain’s largest leech species has seen its numbers plummet due to habitat loss, pollution, and centuries of harvesting for medicinal use—an era when bloodletting was widely (if misguidedly) believed to cure ailments.
Today, Scotland’s remaining medicinal leeches are restricted to three isolated lochs: one in Argyll, one in Islay, and another in Dumfries and Galloway, underscoring the urgency of the conservation work at Highland Wildlife Park.
Dr Helen Taylor, RZSS Conservation Programme Manager, spoke about the thrill of seeing these juvenile leeches hatch, noting that they exceeded initial expectations given the project’s early stages.
“As Scotland’s first project of this kind, we’ve navigated a fair share of challenges—escapes, illnesses, and adapting facilities to support the species’ unique needs,” Dr Taylor said, crediting the expertise of the park’s keepers, field scientists, and vets for the project’s early success.
The baby leeches are thriving, feeding well, and will soon enter torpor, a state of light hibernation for the winter—a phase critical to their development as they continue growing in their new environment.
If progress continues, Dr Taylor hopes the team will eventually release healthy leeches back into the wild to establish new populations in suitable lochs across Scotland.
Planned in partnership with Buglife and Species on the Edge, these future releases will be carried out with community consultation and support to ensure the leeches’ reintegration into their native habitat.
Craig Macadam, Buglife’s Conservation Director, emphasised the programme’s importance, noting that the success at Highland Wildlife Park could be key in ensuring a stable future for Scotland’s rarest invertebrate.
“Medicinal leeches hold a special place in our medical history, and the success here is vital in restoring their presence in Scotland,” said Macadam, whose team will work alongside RZSS, landowners, and local communities to establish new habitats for the species.
With the pioneering work at Highland Wildlife Park paving the way, Scotland’s medicinal leeches might once again thrive in their natural habitats, a small yet meaningful win in the broader story of Scotland’s conservation journey.
