A species not seen locally since the 1990s is to be reintroduced to the New Forest. 

The New Forest Cicada, or Cicadetta Montana, will be caught in Slovenia next month and brought back to England by a team of passionate experts, including animal keepers at Paultons Park. 

The 'singing insects' were once found across the Forest, but there have been no confirmed sightings for more than 30 years.

Daily Echo: Charlotte Carne from the Species Recovery Trust (left) and Jack Williams from Paultons Park

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Bringing live adults back to the UK has never been attempted before, and any cicada nymphs that hatch this year will spend the next six to eight years underground feeding on plant roots, so it will be impossible to know whether even the first step of the reintroduction has been successful until 2030 at the earliest.

The daring, first-of-its-kind project is being led by the Species Recovery Trust (SRT).

Lead project officer Charlotte Carne said: “This whole project is a really exciting experiment: the adult cicadas are going to be extremely hard to spot, and although they do sing, it's pretty much impossible to hear the song if you're over 30 so we have to use bat detectors.

"Our officers are going out to Slovenia for just three days and we might not catch any cicadas.

"Even if we do, we then need to wait six years to find out if the first generation makes it to adulthood. It's so exciting, but also a little tense!”

Daily Echo: Charlotte Carne from the Species Recovery Trust (right) and Jack Williams from Paultons Park.

Cicadas are found across the world and are famous for their loud songs and for spending up to 17 years underground as nymphs. In the United States this year, several trillion cicadas will emerge after either 17 or 13 years below ground.

The SRT has been looking for cicadas in the New Forest for the past ten years but has not made a single sighting.

The Trust has assessed the habitat management techniques the species needs to survive and has worked with Forestry England to put this management in place so they are now ready to attempt a reintroduction, which may be helped by slight rises in temperature in the area over time. 

Natural England has given the Trust £28,000 to help bring the species back.