"I don't think we have ever had as intensive and difficult to put out fires this late in the breeding season, " she said.
Mr Jones said the wildlife trust's "toad patrol" of volunteers would once again be out on the road during the breeding season to help the animals and ensure the number does not drop any further.
"It turns out that currently about 80 percent of the breeding population that we have is on private land, " says Bryan Watts, a biologist at the College of William and Mary, who knows Bowers property well.
Sceptics point out that if big cats have been surviving, and breeding, in the wild for all this time, they only have a natural life span of some 20 years.
In the 1980s, there was a spate of public offerings for breeding farms and thoroughbred partnerships, but the stocks fell out of favor with investors.
The Wee Bankie is a rich sandeel ground some 40 kilometres (25 miles) out to sea but still well within the feeding range of local seabird breeding colonies.
More than anything, the 2013 Kentucky Derby, which is just 65 days away, is shaping up to be the race that settles one burning question: Could Tapit become the most coveted breeding stallion of his generation, or will his progeny turn out to be more like their father?
WSJ: Tapit: Horse Racing's Top Bachelor��2013 Kentucky Derby
Their west Atlantic population ranges the East Coast of the U.S. and Canada and far out to sea, but the Gulf of Mexico is the giant fish's only known breeding area.
Starting out as an amateur horse rider, the late Haefner won the Fegentry Champion Amateur Championship in 1963 and began breeding his own horses at Moyglare.
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