The issues surrounding driven grouse shooting are far wider than ‘just’ the despicable illegal killing of protected wildlife – but that isn’t a bad place to start. And we need to start to end it. It is clear from today’s blog by the RSPB’s Conservation Director, Martin Harper, that the RSPB feels that the criminal…
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
Inner steel
It’s not often that Martin Harper posts a blog on a Saturday but this one is well worth reading. Here is an extract: ‘There is little sign that the grouse moor industry is prepared to condemn, let alone end illegal killing. The industry has to prove that it can deliver the recovery of hen harriers…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
George Monbiot on this subject.
Round up
Yesterday, the Wildlife Trusts awarded Simon Barnes (pictured right) their Rothschild Medal. this is a richly deserved honour in recognition of Simon’s campaigning journalism and beautiful writing – it probably deserves a mention in The Times. This year Simon has been closely associated with two issues that will be familiar to regular readers of…
A green deal
I got my electricity bill today and it was a bit less than I was expecting so that was nice! I also got an email from my electricity supplier, Ecotricity, the other day. They’d like me to persuade you to switch to them and then they’ll give you £50 worth of vouchers and me £50…
Suspended sentence for ‘worst bird of prey poisoner’, Allen Lambert
10 poisoned Buzzards = 10 weeks suspended sentence. This is totally outrageous. Media coverage – click here.
RSPB will come out fighting
Whoever is behind the ill-conceived attack on the RSPB fronted by a silent and absent ex-cricketer, a silent baronet and a silent ex-nature conservationist, and carried into the pages of the Mail on Sunday (did you know that the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, owns a grouse moor?), I believe they have miscalculated. They have misconstrued…
To Quito with love
I blogged a while ago about the meeting in Quito which has implications for insecticide use on crops, veterinary use of diclofenac and the poisoning of wildlife with lead and other poisons. That meeting is now underway. I hear, from mates in other EU countries (isn’t it good to have contacts?) that things, at the…
Yesterday
Yesterday, in London, I spent my time with an Indian conservationist, a former colleague from the RSPB, a former Labour Minister, a Turner Prize winner, an expert on marine conservation, a former Greenpeace director, a Hen Harrier enthusiast, a journalist, an employee of WWF-UK and a talented singer. Sounds like I had a busy day…
SWLA exhibition
Last week I visited the annual SWLA exhibition. I enjoyed it as much as ever and I recommend it to you if you have a spare half an hour or more in central London over the next few days. Of course, there were some works that I liked a lot more than others – the…