My mate Putin

A friend recently sent me a link with the pithy note saying that he was surprised that I was such mates with Vladimir Putin and that he hoped I would use my best endeavours to get him to pull the tanks out of Ukraine. Of course, I’ll do all I can on that front but…

Alternatives to driven grouse shooting

This paper is a mixture of the completely obvious and the quite important. It takes the oft-quoted suggestion by pro-grouse-shooting interests, that the only real alternative land uses to intensive driven grouse shooting are harmful agriculture and harmful afforestation, and says that isn’t true. It clearly isn’t, because what happens in terms of land use…

Interesting

This article in the 4 December Guardian, by highly respected wildlife journalist Patrick Barkham, raised a few eyebrows at the time and prompted an anonymous but clearly well-informed guest blog here, Natural England and the Hen Harriers 30 December, which raised a number of points including questioning how Natural England’s Stephen Murphy could possibly know…

Human Rights – #justiceforhenharriers

It was good to see this account of brood meddling in this legal blog – a bit of a surprise really! There are some mistakes in it, but of a biological nature. Very good to see this being talked about by lawyers, in a slightly jokey way, but bringing the issues to the fore. But…

This ‘track’ must go

Bob Berzins wrote about this track in February 2017 and again in January 2019. This planning case has now been settled with the landowner having to remove the track, reinstate the vegetation and pay costs. This is a good result, though a slow result – see here for details.

Brood meddling challenge – some more

Following on from this morning’s blog, here is the court order. I may get it framed and put it in the loo. You’ll see from this that the RSPB did not, in the end, apply for permission to appeal whereas I did and was turned down – this is entirely normal as one is asking…

Justice for Hen Harriers?

Late last week, I heard that our appeal on the unlawfulness of Natural England’s brood-meddling scheme had failed. That judgment has now been handed down and is public. The RSPB’s similar but independent challenge has also failed. It’s difficult to say much about this result without sounding like a bad loser – tell me whether…

Inglorious – no sparkle here

Driven grouse shooting still exists but it is beleaguered. It’s good to think of how far we have come in just a few years. It is a worthless hobby and its proponents have no answers to the charges against it except to ignore them. If driven grouse shooting hadn’t been invented c170 years ago then…

Brood meddling update

1. Legal challenge: there is a saying that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ and I’m beginning to feel that quite strongly. The RSPB and I, separately, were granted the right to appeal the original judgment over the lawfulness of brood-meddling of Hen Harrier nests in autumn 2019 – yes, 2019. Our appeal was scheduled for…