News reaches Wales!

James McCarthy of Wales Online tells the shocking tale of lots of poisoned birds of prey being found on the Glanusk Estate near Crickhowell which is owned by the Legge-Bourke family. It’s well worth a read especially as ‘this incident has not been reported until now‘. It is well worth a read. It is well…

The grouse moor conception of national leadership

I can remember when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister – I remember my father couldn’t stand him because of something called Selective Employment Tax (funny what you remember isn’t it?) – but I certainly didn’t remember him referring to grouse moors.  So I am grateful to a former RSPB colleague and reader of this blog…

Writing competition – deadline midnight Saturday

Just a reminder that the deadline for this blog’s writing competition is midnight on Saturday. I haven’t read any of the entries so far so I cannot even hint at the quality of the 18 entries. I can say that of the four categories, one currently has just a single entry whereas another already has…

UEA desecration update

Following Monday’s guest blog by Prof Tim O’Riordan there has been a Guardian Country Diary piece by the marvellous Mark Cocker and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust has also stirred itself to voice concerns. Add your name to a petition here.

Guest blog – Big Brother FC says No! by Peter Marren

    Peter Marren has contributed Guest Blogs here before (NHM threatens wildlife (garden), 27 October 2015,  Where green objectives clash, 26 January 2015; Ashes to ashes, 7 November 2012; Wildlife NGOs, 7 October 2011) and his excellent books Where the Wild Thyme Blew and Rainbow Dust – three centuries of delight in British butterflies…

Good news – we’re heading for a debate

I had an email this afternoon confirming that the House of Commons Petitions Committee has agreed to schedule a debate on our e-petition! The date is not yet confirmed and we’ll have to wait a while for that, but the important thing is that there will be a debate in the Westminster parliament on the…

Grouse moors and flooding by Chris Packham

How does shooting grouse for fun connect with the misery of having your home or business flooded? It’s no coincidence that the constituency that has provided the most signatures for our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting is the Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker MP, 762 signatures).  Calder Valley has been flooded several times in recent…

How far have we come together?

I thought hard about whether or not to launch a third e-petition on the subject of banning driven grouse shooting – and then I did. The current e-petition closes at midnight in two weeks time – and started five and a half months ago. I have no idea how many times I have refreshed the…