Let’s just take a step back and survey the scene. the number of Hen Harriers nesting in England over the last decade has fallen and this bird is almost extinct in England Hen Harrier Day attracted hundreds of protesters (in appalling weather) and achieved a social media reach of millions the opening of the Red…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
Grouse shooters – time to give a mile
The issues surrounding driven grouse shooting are far wider than ‘just’ the despicable illegal killing of protected wildlife – but that isn’t a bad place to start. And we need to start to end it. It is clear from today’s blog by the RSPB’s Conservation Director, Martin Harper, that the RSPB feels that the criminal…
Inner steel
It’s not often that Martin Harper posts a blog on a Saturday but this one is well worth reading. Here is an extract: ‘There is little sign that the grouse moor industry is prepared to condemn, let alone end illegal killing. The industry has to prove that it can deliver the recovery of hen harriers…
RSPB will come out fighting
Whoever is behind the ill-conceived attack on the RSPB fronted by a silent and absent ex-cricketer, a silent baronet and a silent ex-nature conservationist, and carried into the pages of the Mail on Sunday (did you know that the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, owns a grouse moor?), I believe they have miscalculated. They have misconstrued…
Yesterday
Yesterday, in London, I spent my time with an Indian conservationist, a former colleague from the RSPB, a former Labour Minister, a Turner Prize winner, an expert on marine conservation, a former Greenpeace director, a Hen Harrier enthusiast, a journalist, an employee of WWF-UK and a talented singer. Sounds like I had a busy day…
19000 signatures – thank you.
Another milestone passed – our (for there are 18,999 of you and only one of me) e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting today passed the 19,000 signature mark. I would like to thank all who have signed and all who have promoted this e-petition. This latest 1000 has taken just under a month to achieve…
What they say
I’ve had a reasonable, in an unreasonable sort of way, amount of abuse over my position that we should ban driven grouse shooting. Most of it is anonymous, most of it on Twitter, and almost all of it from people who have a tiny Twitter following. This reassures me that the people who don’t like…
The non-joint non-plan is still a non-joint non-plan.
I have had a response (Tuesday evening) from Defra to my request for information on the Hen Harrier Sub-group. Most of it is a series of e-mails trying to fix dates for meetings but there are just a few interesting bits too. The information will also be published on www.govuk – good luck to you…
Something from Defra
I had a response (yesterday evening) from Defra to my request for information on the Hen Harrier Sub-group. Most of it is a series of e-mails trying to fix dates for meetings but there are just a few interesting bits too. The information will also be published on www.govuk – good luck to you if…
Guest blog – Birders Against Wildlife Crime by Charlie Moores
A little over two years ago I interviewed a certain Dr Mark Avery for a podcast. Mark had prepared a list of ’10 things we can all do to become activists’, and it had some inspiring sentences written into it. Perhaps not ‘Ask not what your country can do for you‘ inspiring, but practical, sensible,…