Maisie is the Campaign Director and co-founder of Crustacean Compassion. She has previously worked at World Animal Protection, where she successfully co-coordinated the EU Supporting Better Dairy campaign in coalition with Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and Compassion in World Farming, for whom she is also a school speaker. She is currently a Sociology PhD candidate…
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
Back to Bris
Comments Off on Back to Bris
I enjoyed attending the Bristol Ornithological Club’s 50th anniversary dinner last week. I gave a little speech and everyone thanked me, and I thanked them, and they thanked me, and I thanked them – it was a thankfest. We met in Bristol Zoo where the health and safety advice had the unusual twist of ‘…and…
Client Earth, FoE and RSPB in the courts
Careful long-term readers of this blog will have been in a better position than most to understand the significance of the court action being taken by Client Earth, FoE and RSPB in relation to the UK government deciding to ignore its obligations to provide access to environmental justice for its citizens under the Aarhus Convention….
Opportunity for 12-16 year olds
Comments Off on Opportunity for 12-16 year olds
Last summer I was an old green person on a panel of young green people at the WOMAD festival. I was supposed to be mentoring the smiling young man called Josh pictured above but he didn’t need much mentoring. Josh had come to WOMAD from an Action for Conservation Summer Camp and if…
Letter to my MP
Dear Mr Pursglove I am writing to you, again, on the subject of driven grouse shooting. You’ll recall that my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting received 123,077 signatures last year. There was a ‘rival’ e-petition which has recently closed and I’d just like to update you on the relative strength of both petitions, nationally…
Success for Dukes of North Yorkshire
Thank you to all of the readers of this blog who supported the crowdfunder for habitat management to support Duke of Burgundy butterflies. They did it! In fact the target of £6000 was smashed with £9,763 raised. Thank you to Steve Bamford for his Guest Blog. And thank you to all who have supported the…
EPIC FAIL 4 – the scale of the fail
We (because I am sure that you, dear reader, signed the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting) have been luxuriating in the glow of the size of support for our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting for a few months but now that the ‘rival’ e-petition in support of grouse shooting has closed, on a…
Oscar Dewhurst – Cormorant
Comments Off on Oscar Dewhurst – Cormorant
Oscar Dewhurst: A few years ago I spent several days photographing Cormorants in Hyde Park, where they would fish underneath the Serpentine Bridge. The great thing about this location was the shade from the bridge meant the water would appear completely black in the resulting photos. This was taken as the bird surfaced from an…
Bottom of the shooting league table?
The review of gamebird shooting regulation across Europe carried out for SNH is a cracking read – a real eye-opener. Decision-makers across the UK should study it carefully. What emerges from it is that gamebird shooting in the UK (in all four countries) is way adrift of the European norm in terms of standards of…
Tim Melling – Great Black Hawk
This is an adult Great Black Hawk (Buteogallus urubitinga) the split second before snatching a fish from the water. Its bizarre scientific name urubitinga is a native Brazilian (Tupi) word for this bird. It is found in wooded and watery habitats throughout Central and South America. Taken with Nikon D500 Nikkor 300mm f4 lens f4…