This site is a tribute to Rich Hearn, who was born in Buckinghamshire, UK, on 27th April 1971. He lived most of his adult life in Gloucestershire working on international wetland bird conservation. He is much loved and will always be remembered.
The collection for the Slaty Egret, BirdLife Botswana has now closed having collected nearly £15,000. We would like to thank everyone who contributed so generously and left lovely messages. The money will go to crucial conservation work for a species Rich cared about.
Some friends will be running a half marathon in his memory in on October 27th 2024. Please visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/running-for-rich?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Frunning-for-rich&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share to donate.
The WWT tribute to Rich can be found here: https://www.wwt.org.uk/news-and-stories/news/rich-hearn-a-tribute?
The AEWA tribute to Rich can be found here: https://www.unep-aewa.org/en/news/memoriam-%E2%80%93-memory-richard-hearn-1971-2024
Thanks for always supporting the learning team when we needed you. You are very much missed.
I first met Rich when I joined the staff of WWT in 1999. We were a similar age and stage in our careers and worked on many projects together, including cannon-netting geese in Northern Ireland, writing up waterbirds monitoring projects, and ringing ducks at Slimbridge. He was always a joy to work with and our trips to conferences together were always full of fun (being chased down the road in Quebec for a bar tip was a classic!). The last work we did together was to influence some big decisions at the last Ramsar Conference of Parties in Switzerland. He couldn't attend due to his health but he was firing through vital information from afar. I will miss Rich greatly but I am privileged to have known him and learned so much from him. Rest in peace.
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