Donna Nook is a point on the low-lying coast of Lincolnshire, England, north of the village of North Somercotes. The area is salt marsh, and is used by a number of Royal Air Force bases in Lincolnshire for bombing practice. The site was also made available to commercial organisations such as BMARC for firing tests. Wildlife seem to have become accustomed to regular aircraft bombing.
The coastline is managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve. The Grey Seal population return to breed from October to December every year. In 2007, the seal colony had its best breeding season on record, with about 1,194 pups born to the 3,500 resident grey seal colony. A double wooden fence was erected in 2007 to stop people touching the newborn pups.
The reserve, staffed by volunteer wardens, is accessible to the public. Media coverage of Donna Nook has led to a big increase in visitor numbers; it was visited by about 43,000 people in 2006. Surplus money collected through sales is used to further support the protection of seals.
The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has asked walkers and photographers to stay in the public viewing area and to avoid going out onto the sands, following an increase in seal mortality which coincided with an increase in visitor numbers in 2010 and criticism of the disturbance caused by photographers.
Famous quotes containing the words donna and/or nook:
“I’m stronger knowing that while Donna Rice could be sold, she could not be bought.”
—Donna Rice (b. c. 1962)
“For it is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)