As well as the Today programme, there was coverage of the Oxford Lead Symposium publication on BBC TV at breakfast time. This online piece with interviews with WWT staff, Danish hunters (‘I’m a conservationist,’ said Niels Kanstrup, ‘I’m a hunter, too. I think it’s a fair and sustainable way to use natural resources, but we…
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
Take to the streets
Will you join the climate march in London on Sunday? I will. See you there!
Shoot a few, poison a few more
Back to another Tim Bonner quote from his blog in the Huffington Post. I said that I would remind you of what he wrote: ‘Bonner, presumably on the basis of shooting some ducks, regards the estimates of dying waterfowl from lead poisoning in the UK each year as ‘nothing more than speculation‘. Remember that quote…
Norwegian blues over lead
You may remember that I said I’d come back to Tim Bonner’s thoughts, in a Huffington Post blog, on Norwegian lead levels in meat. This is what I wrote: Much is made of the partial reversal of the ban of lead ammunition in Norway. Bonner says that lead is still banned for use in…
Oxford Lead Symposium published
Almost a year ago, a group of scientists met in Oxford to review the evidence for lead impacts on people and wildlife. The shooting organisations were invited and almost to a man, showed their lack of interest in the science of this subject, and boycotted the event. Is it possible they spent the day looking…
Ask your MP to do something
By chance, the three main MPs in the Peak District are from three different political parties: Andrew Bingham, High Peak, Con; Nick Clegg, Sheffield Hallam, Lib Dem; and Angela Smith, Penistone and Stockbridge, Lab. If one of these is your MP then why not write and tell them how upset you are about the lack…
The Sandford Principle
I am very fond of the people who comment on this blog – most of them anyway. There is so much knowledge, and humour, and different perspectives that I learn a lot. Sometimes you just make me smile and sometimes you provide nuggets of information. Yesterday, Richard Wilson, a frequent and valued commenter here, pointed…
Just go back and read the comments…
…on this Guest Blog by Prof Sir John Lawton about the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s plans for a visitor centre at Spurn Point. What a lot of comments – and most of them are against the idea. But most of the Likes/Dislikes are ‘Likes’ for the blog. I wonder how many of the ‘Likes’ are from…
Peak trough
The Peak District National Park is failing badly in being a refuge for protected birds of prey. Our National Parks are wildlife crime hotspots because we allow game shooting to dominate the ecology of so many of them. After five years of ‘co-operation’, when ‘everyone’ was working collaboratively to increase bird of prey numbers, the…
Not mere
I was at Martin Mere over the weekend – and very nice it was too. I saw flocks, gaggles, herds, wisps, springs, flings, paddles, plumps, omnisciences (yes, really!), deserts, a small exaltation, doadings, skeins and flights – but what is the collective noun for lots of your birding friends? Because it was a great place…