Dear Lee,
May I offer my formal congratulations on your election as an MP. I’m not just being polite, I delivered lots of leaflets for your campaign and I am a Labour Party member. We have met briefly – I was one of the small group of Labour supporters who met you in Raunds library at the time of that spate of burglaries in Raunds (and thank you for your help and support with that matter).
I am a founder and co-director of a campaigning group called Wild Justice and since the registered office is my home then we are based in your constituency. My fellow directors are Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay. Here is our website wildjustice.org.uk.
Wild Justice has published a report, using data collected by government agencies, but ignored by the previous government, which shows that the level of poisonous chemicals found in two birds of prey, Buzzards and Red Kites, have soared even though a government endorsed scheme introduced in 2016, the Rodenticide Stewardship Scheme, aimed to reduce their exposure. The chemicals are rodenticides (in common English, rat poisons) and they get into birds of prey and other wildlife through poisoned rats or through illegal use of these poisons, largely by gamekeepers, targetted at protected birds of prey.
Here is the report;
I write now simply to ask you to write to Defra on my behalf and ask the relevant minister (I can’t work out who it would be – I would guess Emma Hardy) what action the new government will take. I would like to see the relaxation of conditions of use of brodifacoum be reversed so that it can only legally be used inside buildings and not outdoors, and I’d like to see a clamp down on illegal use of such chemicals. It is also the job of government to collect and analyse data such as those in our report but then to act on the science. It is ridiculous that under the Tories so many of these public functions of government fell into disrepair and that our tiny organisation is blowing the whistle on this problem.
You’ll be familiar with the Red Kite, it’s difficult to spend a day in this constituency without seeing them soaring overhead and as you may know, these birds were reintroduced to Northants after an absence of over 150 years, by conservationists. The logo of the North Northants unitary authority features (as a result of a public vote) a Red Kite and so this is an issue of great local significance.
Indoors only still doesn’t address the problem of wandering animals semi poisoned and easy to pick up.
Is there any reason why the analysis does not include the Kestrel? They are in decline, their diet is focused on mice, voles and small rats and some people feel that rodenticides are part of the reason for that decline.
Paul – the data had to be prised out of agencies. Work in progress. You should ask why they haven’t published such data. I think you might be right though.