There is a narrative developed by DEFRA and Natural England that the Madden and Sage review, and the bits that they didn’t look at, all combine to mean that any impacts of gamebird releases are limited to, and are known to be limited to, 500m from release sites. This is not true. It’s not true…
Author: Mark
Born Bristol, UK
Educated: Cleeve House School Bristol, Bristol Grammar School and Downing College Cambridge
Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, Winter activity of pipistrelle bats.
NERC post-doctoral Research Fellow, Edward Grey Institute, Oxford University
Former Conservation Director of the RSPB, 1989-2011
Driven shooting ceases for a month in England
BASC is quite often ridiculous, but their guidance on shooting and explanation of what Lockdown2 means for shooting is quite clear and really very sensible (although if readers can spot exceptions to that then comment away here!). Driven shooting is off (and the grouse shooting season ends on 9 December anyway) but rough shooting and…
A new lockdown
Depending on where you live, today may mark the start of a new lockdown, but depending on your behaviour, it may not make very much difference to what you actually do. Because of caring duties for two mothers in their 90s our household hasn’t got out much since March and we have got accustomed to…
USA moves towards a Biden presidency?
I am very fond of the USA and of individual US citizens who, as a rule, on their home turf, I have found to be wonderful hosts and friendly people. But they do elections in a strange way, don’t they? The matter of selecting a President appears, as far as votes counted are concerned, to…
Gamebirds victory (14) – NE’s got some work to do
If you read the DEFRA witness statement (paras 11-21) you’ll find that Natural England has a lot of work to do checking sites before DEFRA can be sure that gamebird releases are not wrecking our best wildlife sites. If only there were a regular and frequent programme of assessing important wildlife sites which was properly…
Gamebirds victory (13) – the complex business of licensing
In the previous blog I explained that DEFRA will put Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge on Schedule 9 of the WIldlife and Countryside Act – as non-native problem species. However, they will do other things too. DEFRA intends to limit the operation of the Schedule 9 listing to areas that are important wildlife sites or within…
Gamebirds victory (12) – Schedule 9, WCA
In order to avoid getting a whipping in court yesterday and today, DEFRA had to concede last week on the necessity to assess the impacts of the release of tens of milllions of non-native gamebirds on protected wildlife sites. That is what Wild Justice asked for and that is what we got. Because DEFRA has…
Gamebirds victory (11) – what happens next?
Today, in a series of blog posts, I will concentrate on what needs to happen next as a result of the Wild Justice legal victory. But, since there is a lot of nonsense being written about the Wild Justice legal victory, here is the sealed court order which ended the case and which is based…
Yesterday on the Nene Washes
Yesterday afternoon I visited the Nene Washes at Eldernell on a very nice afternoon. There were a few other birders there but social distancing was easy and there was some discussion about whether this was the last chance to visit for a month and what counted as local. But I guess that was my pre-lockdown…
Gamebirds victory (10) – DEFRA turned its back on studying these things
As long ago as 2014 I asked DEFRA: ‘What research has been done that addresses the range of ecological costs and benefits of rearing and releasing Pheasants for shooting? Does native wildlife benefit or is it harmed by Pheasant shooting? Does Defra have plans to do any such research?‘ https://markavery.info/2014/03/31/letter-mp-response-defra-2/ and they replied: ‘Defra has…