HAND-rearing baby spiders and releasing them into the wild has earned a South Lakeland wildlife park a gold conservation award.

The Lakeland Wildlife Oasis, at Hale near Milnthorpe, dedicated three years to hand-rearing the semi-aquatic Fen Raft spiderlings, and the team scooped their accolade from the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The attraction was one of several parks to take part in the project. As the team explained, caring for the miniscule, newly-hatched creatures was especially challenging as they have a cannibalistic nature.

With hundreds of spiderlings in just one egg sac, the risk of them attacking each other was high, so each was kept in individual test tubes and fed separately with fruit flies, to help them grow quickly.

The project was managed by Natural England and the spiders were released near Pevensey Marshes in the south of England.

Jo Marsden, of Lakeland Wildlife Oasis, said: "People can wrongly presume that it’s only the large jungle animals that face extinction and need protecting, but that’s not the case at all, which is why we wanted to support the spider project.

"This work brings the plight of our own native species to the public’s attention. It was very time-consuming feeding and watering each individual spider. They’re not easy to work with but it was definitely a labour of love."