Standing up for Nature
Farmers weekly, online, published a slightly irritating article on Wild Justice’s legal challenge over the General Licences last week. We sent them the following letter early today, and had a nice chat with them, and they’ve changed the article in response to our letter. Here’s the letter; Your article on Wild Justice’s legal challenge of…
A quote from Angela Smith MP, now Independent Group MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who is also the Westminster Parliament Species Champion for the Hen Harrier, following last week’s devastating critique of driven grouse shooting in a new scientific paper; Grouse shooting is facing serious scrutiny at the moment, especially in relation to the persecution…
Our big brother blog, Raptor Persecution UK, has done a great job in documenting responses to last week’s damning scientific indictment of the role of driven grouse shooting in causing the near-absence of the Hen Harrier from the English uplands. Here are the links to the various blogs so far and some additions from me;…
I’m catching up on news items here as I’ve been away from my home computer and driving around the UK, or so it seems, for weeks. Robert Goodwill is the new Minister of State in Defra with responsibility for farming – he is a farmer (although his main crop seems to be dead people). Conservative…
This blog by Dr Paul Sterry follows four earlier ones; Toad Rage, Toad Rage 2, Toad Rage 3 and Toad Rage 4. Paul Sterry has an academic background in freshwater biology and is a passionate conservationist. He has been writing about natural history and photographing wildlife for the last 40 years, with an emphasis on…
Beauty and the Beast If you read Erica McAlister’s recent blog here, about her love of flies, you will know now, if you didn’t before, their diversity and their importance in our ecosystems. I am a fairly recent convert to the love of flies and if there is a fly equivalent of a birder then…
The petition Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU is poised just below 5 million signatures and the Prime Minister is lacking poise on the edge of a precipice. A Yellowhammer from Tim Melling in West Yorkshire
Tim writes: the Swinhoe’s Striped Squirrel (Tamiops swinhoei) is only found in high altitude forests (usually 2500-3000m) in China, northern Myanmar and northern Vietnam. I photographed this individual at about 2800m at Labahe in Sichuan, China. It is a tree-dwelling squirrel, though I managed to capture this individual freezing, when it was half way across…
The petition calling for Article 50 to be revoked and for UK to remain in the EU is approaching 4 million signatures https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584
A week ago we launched our crowdfunder on the crowdjustice page to fund a judicial review of Natural England’s decision to issue the general Licences GL04-06. Now we have raised over £30,700 of the £36,000 we need to cover our lawyers’ (highly discounted) fees, court costs and the possibility that we may lose the case…