I’d like to thank all the contributors to the lively debate here over the last week on the way forward in the conflict between grouse shooting interests and the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of our cherished raptors. But seriously, thank you for joining in, especially to those from the shooting community. Did we…
BLOG
Beautiful butterflies were missing
Adonis was the subject of a tug of love between Aphrodite and Persephone because of his great beauty. The Adonis blue is pretty good-looking too and restricted to chalk grassland sites such as are to be found in Dorset, so Wednesday, after being stood up by white-beaked dolphins, was Adonis blue day. Butterflies are pretty…
Quotas – has their time come?
Driven grouse shooting is not without its benefits to the economy and ecology of the uplands although we could argue for years (and have done!) over exactly what are those benefits. The trouble with it is that it is based on the illegal killing of several protected raptor species (most notably, but not exclusively, golden…
Four men in a boat
Comments Off on Four men in a boat
We set off from West Bay with high hopes – Skipper Ian, Diver Dave, Biologist Tom and Ballast Mark. Huntress II passed the beach on which Reginald Perrin stripped and headed into the waves but we were going out into Lyme Bay in search of marine life – which was appropriate since I was getting…
Coping with grouse shooting and coping with hen harriers
Given the scale of illegal killing of raptors associated with driven grouse shooting it would be fair enough, in my opinion, for conservation organisations to campaign for the abolition of grouse shooting – but none of them yet does. Instead, conservationists are putting their members’ money into trying to find a legal way out for…