This looks good: a new website and group called Environmentalists for Europe. The website is rather slow – perhaps it is being inundated with people joining? Follow on Twitter at @Env4Eur Like on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentalistsForEurope/ It’s good to see cross-party support from the likes of Lord Deben, Baroness Young, Caroline Lucas MP, Richard Benyon…
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
Do you tweet (revisited, revisited)
I can’t beleive that it’s almost 18 months since I updated this list of Twitter accounts from some of our favourite wildlife organisations (and BASC and GWCT). But, apparently it is. My Twitter following passed 25,000 a little while ago so I thought that rather than preen myself on the size of my achievement I’d…
Spreading the word
I’ll be talking to what I am told is a sell-out crowd of around 100 people in Glossop on Tuesday evening. My message will be that we should ban driven grouse shooting. In the last couple of weeks I have spoken to a crowd of Cambridge undergraduates (c50 folk), my local RSPB group (c100 people),…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Dear Mr Pursglove
Happy New Year! This is quite a long communication, so I have structured it into three sections: things I’d like you to know as my MP (and my contribution to your Listening to Corby and east Northants campaign), things I’d like to ask you (not the government – you) as my MP, and things I…
Losses
There is what now seems a rather poignant review of Martin Garner’s Birding Frontiers Challenge Series: Winter in the February British Birds. Martin passed away, after a long illness, last week. Here are some last thoughts from Martin. And a link to the Birding Frontiers website. The same BB has an obituary of Norman Moore…
‘More birds of prey illegally killed in the Peak District National Park’
The headline says it all: ‘Reward offered as more birds of prey are illegally killed in the Peak District National Park’. Amongst many press releases issued yesterday by Derbyshire Police, between a couple dealing with illegal off-roading in the Dales and romance fraud, Derbyshire Police and RSPB offered £1000 for information on yet more birds…
HHs in BB – time for the Royals to speak out.
There is an excellent paper in British Birds – there often is. But the February BB has ‘The past, current and potential status of breeding Hen Harriers in North-east Scotland’ by Graham Rebecca, Brian Cosnette, Jim Craib, Alistair Duncan, Brian Etheridge, Ian Frnacis, Jon Hardey, Alastair Pout and Logan Steele. It’s a very good local…
Natural England looks for a scientist
The Natural England Board is looking for a scientist. This type of role might once have looked quite attractive when Natural England was seen as an organisation that worked hard for the conservation of nature, but is now far less attractive when it is difficult to see Natural England as anything other than a rather…
Back to normal?
After the run-in to the end of the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting (which keeps edging upwards, but stands at 33,647 signatures), and a week of blogs about lead, it’s time to get back to normal (for a while). January was, however, a record month for this blog, with a record number of unique…