Naturally curious

Reading the minutes of other people’s meetings is not my natural habitat or habit.  However, you never know what you might find.  The trouble is,  most minutes are written to hide rather than expose any interesting parts of the meetings they purport to summarise. What might we find out if we had the energy to…

Mown down – the Grasslands Trust

Last week’s news that the Grasslands Trust has gone into liquidation is sad to hear but it may only be the first and most public sign of the impact of the recession on our tangled bank of wildlife conservation organisations. I know many of the Grasslands Trust’s staff personally, including their Chief Executive Lucy Cooper,…

Round up

Defra: are pretty hopeless really aren’t they?  I haven’t had a reply to my ex MP’s letter about Andrew Wood’s witness statement.  I’m probably on a database as a pleb – but that’s better than being a patrician.  (see previous blogs on Wuthering Moors). Autumn: I saw a jay on my walk around Stanwick Lakes…

Ralph Underhill cartoon – 2

Each Saturday the Standing up for Nature blog features the work of talented cartoonist Ralph Underhill.  Feel free to comment and to suggest future subjects for Ralph’s pen.

New lead study published – what will hunters do now?

A new scientific paper on the human health impacts of lead ingestion from gamebirds shot with lead has recently been published. This study uses measured levels of lead in gamebirds on sale in the UK to estimate health impacts. Perhaps the most striking proposed impact is that for children, eating lead-shot gamebirds around once a…