Jail birds

Tuesday 03 January 2017

Prisoners at La Moye are helping save endangered birds in the Island.

Under a scheme, backed by the States of Jersey Environment Department and the Jersey National Park Group, inmates are honing their carpentry skills and producing wooden hedgehog homes and bat boxes.

Since the scheme was set up in 2013 the workers have built more than 3,000 items. Some of the money from the sale of boxes has also been donated to the Birds on the Edge Scheme – a project to help rescue endangered birds in the Island.

The Co-op’s supported the prisoner rehabilitation initiative from the very beginning and has announced it’s going to give it a further boost: 3,000 pallet boards from its ceased warehouse operations.

Ron Morris, warehousing and distribution manager at The Channel Islands Co-operative Society, said: “After the closure of our on Island warehouse operations in 2015, we had a huge number of quarter pallet boards that we wanted to find a new home for. We were approached by La Moye to see if we’d like to continuing supporting their environmental scheme and we were very happy to do so.”

Chris Wilson, from the States of Jersey Prison Service, added: “This new influx of recycled materials will allow us to continue with the project. We are also developing links with local primary schools, many of which have already placed orders for bird boxes, bat boxes, squirrel feeders and hedgehog homes. At the moment, we are making two bat boxes for each primary school in the Island and will run through a bat box building session with one of the classes. We are delighted with the progress of the project so far, and the prisoners are really enjoying learning new skills, which will hopefully have a positive impact on their rehabilitation and job prospects in the future.”