Standing up for Nature
Beauty and the Beast If you read Erica McAlister’s recent blog here, about her love of flies, you will know now, if you didn’t before, their diversity and their importance in our ecosystems. I am a fairly recent convert to the love of flies and if there is a fly equivalent of a birder then…
The petition Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU is poised just below 5 million signatures and the Prime Minister is lacking poise on the edge of a precipice. A Yellowhammer from Tim Melling in West Yorkshire
Tim writes: the Swinhoe’s Striped Squirrel (Tamiops swinhoei) is only found in high altitude forests (usually 2500-3000m) in China, northern Myanmar and northern Vietnam. I photographed this individual at about 2800m at Labahe in Sichuan, China. It is a tree-dwelling squirrel, though I managed to capture this individual freezing, when it was half way across…
The petition calling for Article 50 to be revoked and for UK to remain in the EU is approaching 4 million signatures https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584
A week ago we launched our crowdfunder on the crowdjustice page to fund a judicial review of Natural England’s decision to issue the general Licences GL04-06. Now we have raised over £30,700 of the £36,000 we need to cover our lawyers’ (highly discounted) fees, court costs and the possibility that we may lose the case…
I asked United Utilities for some information on two subjects on 2 March and got my first reply on 19 March – that’s a hell of a lot quicker than Natural England usually manage. Thank you United Utilities. This question was about lead levels in water. This subject came up in questions after my talk…
Yesterday, Wild Justice’s lawyers issued the claim form seeking permission for judicial review of Natural England’s decision to issue the General Licences GL04-06 on 1 January 2019. We haven’t yet got a nice court seal on our claim form as there is a backlog, apparently. We have notified Natural England of our application for judicial…
Here is a link.
Yesterday’s devastating scientific description of the impact of grouse shooting on the threatened Hen Harrier (the original paper, my blog on its findings) was greeted by Natural England Director, Rob Cooke with the following: This research identifies the scale of the problem hen harriers have faced on grouse moors. It makes for sobering reading and…
It’s been a long time coming but the paper published today in Nature Communications is crushing proof that grouse moor management is overwhelmingly the source of wildlife crime against Hen Harriers. The open-access paper by Megan Murgatroyd, Stephen Redpath, Stephen Murphy, David Douglas, Richard Saunders and Arjun Amar is entitled: Patterns of satellite tagged hen…