I have spent quite a lot of time, some of it in pubs, talking about what would be the legal repercussions of walking through a grouse shoot which is in process. It seems that there aren’t any – at least that’s what I understand from this response from Natural England’s Open Access Contact Centre; …
Year: 2017
Grouse shooters’ survey
You may remember that last year the likes of Ian Botham and the not-so-talented Viscount Ridley were using an unpublished ‘survey’ to prop up their view that grouse shooting is great for wildlife. At the time, Matt Ridley refused to disclose the data on which he based his claim with ‘It was a privately commissioned…
Marsh Harriers on Denton Moor
You may remember this video released by the RSPB last week … …and the RSPB blog on the case. Denton Moor is in the Nidderdale AONB and the relevant part of the moor is owned by the prestigious engineering firm NG Bailey. They commented to me as follows; RSPB/Marsh harrier incident on Denton Moor…
OLDs at West Pennine Moors SSSI
The long story of protecting the West Pennine Moors as an SSSI has come to its administrative climax with the publication of the legal documents following an NE Board meeting in July. Because new SSSIs aren’t that common, and new upland ones certainly aren’t, I actually glanced through the document with some interest, when my…
Not really a book review – Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham
Chris Packham is a great guy – I admire his toughness and his persistence. But he gets an awful lot of very nasty flak from the shooters. Remember the Countryside Alliance called for the BBC to drop their best wildlife presenter a couple of years ago – well, don’t think that has gone away,…