I’ve been in London since the evidence session on Tuesday and have met or been in touch with many MPs. The strong message comes back that the grouse shooting industry is rattled and on the back foot because never before has it faced such public scrutiny. We have posed the questions when will wildlife crime…
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
Guest blog – Toads declines are about more than toads or amphibians by Silviu Petrovan
Silviu joined Froglife in 2011 to take up the new post of Conservation Coordinator. Despite recently working on mammals for a number of years Silviu has always been interested in reptiles and amphibians and has worked as a herpetologist on several research projects, primarily in Romania, Honduras and Indonesia. He is a fully qualified vet…
Big Match fortnight ends at midnight – please consider a donation
World Land Trust (of which I am a Council member) is working with Wildlife Trust of India in an urgent bid to save Indian Elephants from extinction by safeguarding their traditional migration routes. The Elephant Corridor Appeal aims to raise £750,000 to extend and protect Mudahalli Corridor, where the Eastern and Western Ghats meet in…
What next?
Yesterday – evidence session Today – written evidence from the four witnesses who were called to give evidence in person published In the next few days hundreds of written submissions received by the inquiry will be published I will submit supplementary evidence to the Committee I believe that option is open to the public too…
You can’t ignore 123,076 signatures
The shooting community lacks good losers – but they had better get better at it. One of their current bugbears is the wave of public opinion that has carried the subject of driven grouse shooting into the Westminster parliament. The simple fact is that only 38 petitions have been debated in this session of parliament…
Written evidence from the four witnesses who gave oral evidence.
My written evidence RSPB’s written evidence Countryside Alliance’s written evidence Moorland Association’s written evidence The inquiry received hundreds of statements of written evidence which will be published over the next few days. It’s a big job for the committee clerks to read it all, exclude any evidence that might be libellous or inappropriate for…
An interesting session
Well that was interesting! The evidence session yesterday took something like twice as long as the time for which it was scheduled because of the interest from MPs. That’s a good thing. The transcript of the session should be available later today, I guess (which is remarkably quick). I’ll look forward to reading it as…
What’s up at HOT?
No news that I can spot on the Hawk and Owl Trust website following their AGM 10 days ago. Slightly odd? Have there been new trustees elected?Was the Chair re-elected? Or what? Is it a secret? The H&OT say in part of their website that they are supporting two elements of the government’s hopeless Hen…
Evidence session at 2:15pm
Come senators, congressmen please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a’ changin’! The Times they…
What people might say tomorrow.
RSPB: Martin Harper helpfully sets out the RSPB case on driven grouse shooting in his blog today ahead of the evidence session tomorrow at 2:15pm. There is not much between the RSPB and my position when it comes to the litany of problems associated with driven grouse shooting. These arguments have been well rehearsed and…