I’m looking forward to talking in the Oxford Festival of Nature next week. I’ll be talking about…guess what?…why we should ban driven grouse shooting and why the residents of Oxford should do some catching up (per capita) with the residents of Cambridge in signing our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. Cambridge 110 signatures…
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
Donations gratefully accepted
Thank you to all who gave generously in response to yesterday’s request for support to enable us to publicise the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. Every pound helps! Thank you. Your donation will be spent to publicise the campaign and e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in the following ways: design, printing and postage…
Poletraps on the Yorkshire Dales grouse moors – caution!
In a blog post that should change the course of the summer, the RSPB reveals a case of three poletraps being placed on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. What the RSPB says: Read it all here, but here’s a summary. Three set pole traps were found on a grouse moor in…
Slovakia – Days 4 and 5
We were all a bit bushed after climbing up through the beech woods of Day 3 – or maybe it was the winetasting that did it? Have you ever had a red Dunaj from Slovakia? Quite a surprise – and an entirely pleasant one. Day 4 was a relaxed tour around some more wetland sites….
Would you buy me a pint, please?
I bet you would! This one looks nice – see more about it here. Instead of buying me a pint please consider making a small-ish, pint-sized (though gallon-sized would be fine too), donation to the campaign to ban driven grouse shooting. Your donation will be spent to publicise the campaign and e-petition to ban driven…
Bizarre – or what?
There are only a few reasons for this letter to be written and published. These are my best guesses: it was raining yesterday and Ian Coghill was bored – and presumably The Times didn’t have any decent letters to publish GWCT and the shooting industry are so rattled by the growth of support for the…
Thunderclap
Stewart Abbott has started a thunderclap to promote the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. It’s already well-supported (thank you all!) but everyone who joins it helps to spread the word and recruit more supporters. If you are active on Twitter, Facebook or tumblr then please consider adding your name to this thunderclap and that…
Guest blog – The battle for Beddington Farmlands (lost?) by Peter Alfrey
Peter Alfrey is a naturalist based at Beddington Farmlands, and is director of Little Oak, a small company specialising in nature-friendly green space management in South London Beddington Farmlands is a 400 acre site in South London, designated a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, is Metropolitan Open Land and has a total of…
A welcome move north of the border
I’m very pleased to hear that preparations are well under way to start a petition aimed at the Scottish parliament to ban driven grouse shooting. This would be very welcome and just as Scotland has strongly supported my/our e-petition aimed at the Westminster parliament then I will certainly promote a similar vehicle in Scotland. Watch…
Minister dozing on lead
We are fast approaching the anniversary of the submission of the Lead Ammunition Group’s report to ministers. We have seen no visible sign of activity from the minister with responsibility for this issue – Rory Stewart. He appears to have dozed off. The recently published LAG minutes from a teleconference held in late April are…