BASC carried out a survey of ‘the public’ and asked 1457 people some questions back in March 2015. However, the public were 84% BASC members and 16% non-members. Only 77% of respondents (remember 84% were BASC members) said their social life would be poorer without shooting. Clearly at least 8.3% of BASC members would have…
BLOG POSTS
Happy Thanksgiving!
Benjamin Franklin wanted the Wild Turkey to be the national bird of the USA instead of the actual choice of the Bald Eagle. He wrote to his daughter thus: “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character….
Techy update
I know this technical stuff is quite dull but I’d like to keep you informed of what we will call progress. As best I can tell, for most people the change in server hosting has been either neutral (wasn’t a problem before, isn’t a problem now) or positive (loads quicker, hooray!). For a few people,…
The autumn statement?
A few predictions for phrases for the Chancellor’s autumn statement: it’s a bugger being in the Cabinet – I had no time to get Siberian Accentor unlike almost everyone else in the country. I bet that Ken Clarke has it on his list now. Only 32 European records up until 2015, and none…
Techy stuff
As you may have read, I did some work to this site over the weekend, with some help from some nice men (they have all been men so far) in Arizona. The good news is that this site now loads noticeably faster for me, and for most of you. The bad news is…not very bad….
How ‘eco’ are Ecotricity’s plans for Green Gas Mills?
Last week Ecotricity, who supply my household electricity and gas, announced ambitious plans for Green Gas Mills which would produce gas from grass. The pitch is that green gas could replace or displace fracking (the environmentalist’s bete noir) and produce virtually carbon-free gas without affecting food production and by the way, help produce…
A modest proposal
If you need a licence to release native UK species, such as Red Kites, into the environment you should surely need a licence to release non-native species such as Pheasants into the countryside.
Planet Earth 2 – (3)
No snakes again – where were the chaser, racer, pacer snakes? You can’t go far wrong in a jungle can you? Birds of Paradise? The far end of males being daft just because females demand it (see Remarkable Birds). Jaguars – the Snow Leopards of warm wet places? The Capybara got away just like Ed…
Guest blog – Disturbing for Nature by Miles King
Miles King is Chief Executive of People Need Nature a new charity working to highlight the sensory, emotional and spiritual values of nature. He has worked in nature conservation for 30 years, leading the conservation work at Plantlife, The Grasslands Trust and Buglife. He has also worked for English Nature, Natural England and as a…
Website upgraded
A couple of people have mentioned that this site has been slow to load recently – and I have noticed it too (although my broadband has been a bit dodgy lately too). So I spent half a day yesterday sorting it out through doing some stuff myself, talking to the support team at GoDaddy and…