Conder Head back in October 2018 This fire on the Abbeystead Estate’s Conder Head back in October has interested me. Is it on blanket bog? Apparently not. Is it on deep peat? Apparently so – see below a reply I received today. Well, we got there in the end. Natural England/Defra appear to be happy…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
Today, I am in court
Today is the third and final day of the hearing of our legal challenge to NE’s licensing of brood meddling. I may be able to write a few words about it for publication here on Friday afternoon – I’ll try.
A year ago
It is appropriate, perhaps, that a year ago today Natural England issued a licence for the brood meddling of Hen Harriers. Tomorrow will see the third and final day of the court hearing of my legal challenge, and a similar but separate one by the RSPB, against that decision. We will not hear the judge’s…
Back in court a week today
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We’re back in court a week today (on 17 January) for the last, the third, day of our judicial review hearing in front of Ms Justice Lang. The hearing is in the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand and is open to the public. For the first two days we were in Court 18…
Letchworth
There were nearly 60 people in the audience of the Hitchin and Letchworth RSPB group on Friday evening – and they were a very friendly and jolly lot. And some of them went away with signed copies of my books too. It’s often the questions that are the most interesting thing for me – because…
2019 will be another bad year for driven grouse shooting.
2019 will be another bad year for driven grouse shooting. Here are some of the reasons: the long, long, long-awaited analysis of the NE Hen Harrier tagging data should be published soon. Getting these data published clearly hasn’t been as straightforward as the authors had hoped as back in mid-August they were hoping that the…
2018 – another terrible year for grouse shooters
Grouse shooting is still with us but its supporters must be counting the years. The ratchet of progress is irresistible and driven grouse shooting is doomed. 2018 brought its demise a bit closer and so will 2019. I’m looking forward to 2019. 2018 was the year when: there were very few Red Grouse available for…
Grouse moors – poor value
This report was published a few days ago by Common Weal – a member of the Revive coalition (see here and here) that is looking to reform intensive grouse shooting in Scotland. It’s interesting, although not stunningly so. The report compares the economic gross value added (GVA) and jobs, both per hectare, of grouse shooting…
Natural England PhD – Hen Harrier reintroduction
Natural England, that cash-strapped former conservation agency, is funding a PhD into raptor translocations. But it will use the case study of the reintroduction of Hen Harriers in England. Short thesis!
RSPB reports another Hen Harrier disappeared
Arthur, a Hen Harrier tagged this summer as a nestling in the Peak District has disappeared in North Yorkshire says RSPB (although this is, slightly confusingly (it confused me), a repeat of a previous press release). The bird, named Arthur, hatched from a nest in the Peak District the summer of 2018. This was the…