BLOG POSTS

Press release by Trees for Life – UK ‘return’ for ancient aurochs

Mark Comments Off on Press release by Trees for Life – UK ‘return’ for ancient aurochs

UK ‘return’ for ancient aurochs 400 years after European extinction Huge wild cattle could be ‘back from the dead’ to rewild Highlands near Loch Ness Trees for Life has launched a project which could see the first introduction to the UK of a breed of huge wild cattle called tauros – effectively reintroducing the aurochs, the…

RSPB press release – Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction 

Mark Comments Off on RSPB press release – Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction 

Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction  One of the world’s rarest birds, Wilkins’ Bunting, has been handed a much-needed lifeline by a small species of parasitoid wasp.  Only found on the remote Nightingale Island in the South Atlantic, the bunting’s food source was threatened by an invasive alien scale insect.  Conservationists…

Guest blog – The Faroe Islands’ Grindadráp:  whose business is it? by Alick Simmons

Mark 12 Comments

Alick Simmons spent most of his career in public service serving as the UK Food Standards Agency’s Veterinary Director (2004-2007) and the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer (2007-2015). He is the current chair of the Zoological Society of London’s Ethics Committee on Animal Research and a member of the Wild Animal Welfare Committee.  He…

Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 17 by Nick MacKinnon

Mark 2 Comments

Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…

Guest blog – How donations to World Land Trust can be Multiplied Four Times by Andy Langley

Mark Comments Off on Guest blog – How donations to World Land Trust can be Multiplied Four Times by Andy Langley

Andy Langley is a wildlife enthusiast and supporter of World Land Trust (WLT), who will be doing a sponsored birdwatch this October to raise money for WLT’s ‘Protecting the Ecuadorian Amazon’ appeal. Each October, for the last seven years, my employer Ecclesiastical Insurance, part of the Benefact Group, has pledged matched funding up to £5,000…

Guest blog – Think Big, Act Bigger by Roy Dennis

Mark 2 Comments

Roy Dennis is a senior and eminent wildlife conservationist with a lovely voice and plenty of things to say. He once worked for the RSPB as Highland Officer and before that he was the director of the Fair Isle Bird Observatory. For many, Roy is best known for his role in promoting reintroductions of mammals…

RSPB in some trouble

Mark 50 Comments

Indications have been growing for some months that the RSPB is in trouble but it’s no use hiding it any more. Many organisations go through what seem like interminable reviews, and RSPB has had its share in the past decade or so, but this one is pretty serious. The jobs of hundreds of staff have…

Guest blogs for this site – guidance

Mark Comments Off on Guest blogs for this site – guidance

This blog has published over 400 guest posts since May 2011. Do you recognise any of these names; John Burton, Peter Cairns, Ian Carter, Andy Clements, Ian Coghill, Mary Colwell, Kerri ni Dochartaigh, David Fursdon, Derek Gow, Jeremy Greenwood, Miles King, John Lawton, Dara McAnulty, Lucy McRobert, Peter Marren, Stephen Moss, Andrew Painting, Alick Simmons,…

Illegal use of lead ammunition to shoot Mallards continues

Mark 2 Comments

This paper looks at lead pellets retrieved from shot Mallards in the 2020/21 shooting season at a time long after the use of lead ammunition to shoot ducks was made illegal in England (similar but slightly different rules apply in other UK nations). Most Mallards in the study were shot with lead ie they were…