Guest blog – International Vulture Awareness Day by Ian Parsons

Tomorrow, the first Saturday of September, is International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD).  The aim of the day is, as the name suggests, to raise awareness of the plight of vulture species across the world. The majority of these are in big trouble, in serious danger of extinction. Regular readers of this blog will know that…

Passenger Pigeon day

‘On 1 September 1914, between midday and 1 pm, in the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Cincinnati, Ohio, a pigeon breathed her last, and with her died her species. The pigeon was known as Martha, and the species was the Passenger Pigeon. Amongst all extinctions, this example remains unusual in two respects: the precision with which…

Cairngorms NP doesn’t know what to say…? UPDATED

Peter Argyle, Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park must have been keeping his fingers crossed that this wouldn’t happen. He attends a packed hall on Hen Harrier Day, says some of the right things about illegal persecution, and then another Hen Harrier disappears mysteriously in his National Park. And, of course, it was last recorded…

A large landowner speaks…

Given that the Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park, Peter Argyle, attended the Boat of Garten Hen Harrier Day event, and spoke at it, and would have heard the strength of feeling in that room about continued raptor persecution within the Cairngorms NP,  it will be interesting to see what the National Park has to…