After coronavirus (which might be quite a long way away), or at least when the world settles down to a new normal, there are some things that I’d like to be different. So over the next days and weeks I’m going to write them down. They will mostly be to do with our relationship with…
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
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Dear First Minister – it’s me again
Dear First Minister I doubt that you have had the time to look through many, if any, of the emails sent to you this week about the young poisoned White-tailed Eagle found on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park. I’ve seen hundreds of them but that, I know, is a small proportion. What…
by Mr Carbo
Comments Off on by Mr Carbo
Unfortunately, eagles don’t read blogs or social media or newspapers so they don’t realise the risks they are taking entering the Cairngorms National Park… …and this is what happens … If you are maddened or saddened by the level of wildlife crime in Scotland’s Cairngorms National Park then please write to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon…
Update on 2020 Hen Harrier brood meddling (2)
This is information that I was sent last week by Natural England about this year’s activities in Hen Harrier brood-meddling. I have disclosed here less detailed information about the nest and release localities than I was given, as that seems wise. Intervention nest 1 Four chicks were taken from a nest in North Yorkshire on…
Updates and news
The National Trust is making up to 1,200 staff redundant as part of £100m/yr savings plans Nidderdale Cocktail of bendiocarb, chloralose, isofenphos and carbofuran kills dog. Same local cocktail responsible for raptor deaths. Insp Matt Hagen, from North Yorkshire Police, said: “The fact we have seen this same combination of chemicals, the ‘Nidderdale cocktail‘ as…
Dear First Minister – what you told Nicola Sturgeon
Many readers of this blog and of my newsletter have written to Nicola Sturgeon and/or Roseanna Cunningham about the finding of a poisoned White-tailed Eagle on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park. Here are just some examples of ones that I have been sent. You notice they are all polite, personal and well-written….
Dear First Minister – from Chris Packham
Dear Nicola and Roseanna I hope you are both well in these strange and worrying times. I’m writing about the White-tailed Eagle which has recently been found poisoned in the Cairngorms National Park, which by now you will be familiar with. And I’ll speak candidly and frankly. We, that’s every decent, law abiding, well informed…
Dear First Minister – from Bob Elliot and OneKind
Dear Cabinet Secretary (and copied to First Minister Sturgeon) I write as the Director of OneKind and also from a personal point of view regarding the recent very bad news of yet another poisoned bird of prey discovered on a grouse moor, and my wider concerns about the killing of our wild animals. You may remember…
Dear First Minister – from Laurence Rose
Dear First MinisterI have just written a book, publication date 1 October, called Framing Nature – conservation and culture. I’ll send you a copy, hoping that you’ll have a few minutes one evening to read the first few lines of the introduction, which opens with the tragic story of the Scottish wildcat – a sad…