Sacha Dench “Human Swan”
First woman to cross English Channel by Paramotor
In 2016, Sacha Dench, also known as ‘Human Swan’, a conservationist, biologist, adventurer, and motivational speaker who flew 7,000 kilometers in her breakthrough expedition, ‘Flight of the Swans’ across 11 countries in a motorized paraglider to study the migration & decline of Bewick swans from Siberia in the northern of Russia to the Wetlands of England. Sacha and her ground crew continued to track the swans progress through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and France. Ever-year massive group of swans undertakes one of nature’s biggest migrations, flying thousands of kilometers, to and from their breeding grounds from Northern Russia to Western Europe. There were about 29,000 Bewick swans in Europe in 1995; by 2010, the figure had fallen to 18,100 and the numbers kept on falling. One cause for shooting is that a quarter of the Bewick swans x-rayed at the Slimbridge reserve of the WWT in Western England have fired in them, but Dench also linked to the loss of wetland habitat where their movement can rest or feed. Unfortunately, however, not all of them make it and numbers have fallen over the last 30 years, which may be partially attributable to threats such as wetland habitat destruction and shooting.
Sacha Dench becomes the first woman to cross the English Channel as the part of her journey following migrating swans, and has won her and her team awards for aviation, conservation, and communication. Born in Australians, Sacha Dench is a biologist, who grew up in Kiah south of Eden but later moved to the United Kingdom and been working there since 1997, with Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) to raise awareness of endangered species. After such an enthralling 10week journey following the annual migration of Bewick swans to better determine the theory for their dwindling numbers, the 41-year-old made history crossing the Channel on her paramotor. On the 7,000 kilometers journey across Europe and Africa, she recorded aquatic mammals she sees from her paramotor.
Her recent awards includes the 2018 Britannia Trophy for the most praiseworthy performance in aviation, a Woman of the Year 2017 and the Environment Campaign of the Year 2017. In remembrance of her achievements to raise awareness of threatened migratory species, and their habitats, Dench on 17th February, 2020 was appointed as an ambassador for the UN Convention on Migratory Species by the Coordinating Unit of the Raptors MOU at the 13th Meeting of the Conference of Parties to CMS in Gandhinagar, India. Sacha Dench is the Co-founder and CEO of Conservation without Borders, a charity that supports leading conservationists and experts by generating media, public, political support for their work, bringing people from different walks of life together to discover difficulties, find solutions, and to record and share them influential, inspirational imagery and story.
Dench plans to replicate the success of the ‘Flight of the Swans’ with a 10,000 kilometers expedition in Autumn 2021 called, ‘Flight of the Osprey’ that aims to highlight the threats faced by migrating Osprey and other wildlife. The paramotor expedition will fly through 15 countries following the Osprey’s western flyway from the UK, across the Mediterranean Sea, Morocco, Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone and finishing in Ghana. This mission will include a spectacular bird’s eye view of the migratory path of the Osprey while gathering vital information about the obstacles faced along the way. The project will involve communities and politicians on the ground along the flyway, raise local and international attention from the media and raise public awareness of the problem of migratory prey birds. In her expedition, she will examine the dangers to the Osprey along their range, and work accordingly that individuals, local communities and organizations can do to help the Osprey make a full comeback.
Dench will work with the CMS Vulture MSAP(Multi Species Action Plan) co-ordination team, along with an expert behavior change psychologist in her team, while in India at CMS COP13, to launch another project with Conservation without Borders that will benefit bringing the vulture crisis to life and help to drive change for conservationists working on various concerns in different parts of the world.
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