Still no statement on Peak District National Park website on their raptor report
Still no news from Natural England on the gull cull in Bowland which was notified as an SPA partly because of its…gulls!
Still no news from the NT on its new tenants.
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One can only suggest that the NE local team must be doing the most through of investigations as to why a cull of Lesser black backs was allowed in an SPA for the species on the flimsiest of excuses—- it is after all the Abbeystead grouse moors we are talking about. On the other hand they may just be hoping we all go away. I have no idea what the new duke is like, I think I met his father three times and my opinion is I suspect entirely unprintable other than the words pompous and odious prig.
Just from reading the papers, it looks like the new duke is different, or at least does different stuff. But the proof of the pudding…
Maybe they’re too busy trying to sort out who’s going to pay for what? https://consult.defra.gov.uk/natural-england/wildlife-licence-charges/
2018 could get interesting – Michael Gove is demonstrating almost daily that he is not prepared to waste votes over trivia – and licenses to cull Buzzards, LBB Gulls (and even Marsh Harriers) clearly come into that category – not one single vote to be gained, and it is hard to see the applicants switching to Jeremy Corbyn, isn’t it ?
The big battle is still to come – no doubt the Conservatives will try and postpone it till after the next election – the future of funding to the countryside. In one’s dreams its possible to imagine Labour rousing themselves to produce a competitive narrative for our rural areas, farming, nature and the environment. Any serious attack on those safe rural Conservative seats would really put the cat amongst the pigeons. The building blocks are there – but at the moment Gove looks closer to using them than Labour or the conservation lobby.