And so we say farewell to David Cameron the former Prime Minister and now former MP for Witney – I wonder whether the constituents who wrote to him about grouse shooting will ever get a reply? Mr Cameron will be remembered for accidentally getting us out of the EU when he himself wanted to stay…
BLOG POSTS
Who are the environmental lobby?
Farmers Guardian insight has an interesting little article on ‘who are the environmental lobby?’ I’d have thought that most farmers have noticed by now but you never know. Apparently it’s not the Wildlife Trusts, Friends of the Earth, WWF-UK or Greenpeace – which will miff some of those not named. The environmental lobby is George…
Guest blog – Tree Blindness by Ian Parsons
Ian Parsons spent twenty years working as a Ranger with the Forestry Commission, where he not only worked with birds of prey and dormice, but where he developed his passion for trees. Now a freelance writer, Ian runs his own specialist bird tour company leading tours to Extremadura. For more details see www.griffonholidays.com This is…
Thank you Sandringham
This from the BTO website: ‘One of our Goshawks began automatically reporting its position soon after leaving its nest in Thetford Forest on 23 July 2016. Over the following few weeks it visited Narborough, Roydon Common and the Sandringham area. The bird was reported to BTO by Sandringham Estate as having been found dead on 9…
Leadsom’s historic opportunity
I’ve been to the launch of the latest State of Nature report. To the extent that such a depressing document can be fun, it was fun. But it was certainly interesting. The wildlife NGOs managed to entice the new Secretary of State for E, F and RA to the event to make a speech and…
The gift that keeps on giving
The Gunning Wildlife, Conserving Tadpoles team make a habit of getting things wrong these days – there are three errors in this tweet of theirs. That passage purports to be a quote from my work in 2015 – in fact the GWCT have introduced two errors into the passage and it was actually a quote…
Badger cull debate
To get a flavour of the type of debate that our e-petition on banning driven grouse shooting might receive, have a look at the transcript of the Westminster Hall debate on badger culling. I sat in the debate last week, on Wednesday afternoon, as a member of the public. This debate on badger culling had…
The APPG on Shooting (and Conservation)
At the second time of asking the Public Enquiry Point for the APPG for Shooting (and Conservation) came up with a list of its members. Thank you. It would be wrong necessarily to expect that every person on this list is an active, keen and accomplished shooter of wildlife, but some certainly are. The members…
121,000+ and just over a week to go
With a whole week and whatever remains of today, Tuesday, to go before our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting closes, here is how the constituencies with over 300 signatures stand: Calder Valley 859 High Peak 554 Bristol West 510 Ross, Skye and Lochaber 505 Ribble Valley 479 Derbyshire Dales 473 Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and…
Calling the Calder Valley constituency!
Dear Calder Valley constituents I’d like to thank you for your support for my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. Your constituency has provided the largest number of signatures supporting my e-petition – over 850 signatures with just over a week to go. I guess that the reason that support has been so strong from…