In the current issue of British Birds there is a paper on a long-term study of Merlins on grouse moors in the Lammermuirs which makes an interesting read (as do many other pages in the journal). Data were collected over a span of 31 seasons (with that break in data for the Foot-and-Mouth year…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
An article by me in British Birds
Comments Off on An article by me in British Birds
British Birds kindly asked me to write one of their guest editorials and Driven grouse shooting – where next? has recently been published on their website.
Last day to support this thunderclap
Birder, ringer, blogger and campaigner Findlay Wilde set up this thunderclap which will spread its message tomorrow. A thunderclap is a social media tool that spreads messages. If you are on Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr and you sign up to Findlay’s thunderclap then at 11am on 21 March all your social media contacts will be…
That’s what we need – NGOs with campaigning zeal!
‘The state-sanctioned snaring of Scotland’s mountain hares appears to be over after a wildlife quango suggested there will be a clampdown on permits to kill the iconic species.‘ says The Sunday Times today. The charity OneKind has been at the forefront of this campaign and they deserve a lot of credit for this decision being…
Black v Red
The moorland where we watched Black Grouse display yesterday morning – we saw about 40 birds altogether – also holds Red Grouse. The Black Grouse were displaying and singing but the Red Grouse were behaving like the silent majority in the early morning. Let’s say there are around 100 Black Grouse at this site (maybe…
Letter to my MP
Dear Mr Pursglove I am writing to you, again, on the subject of driven grouse shooting. You’ll recall that my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting received 123,077 signatures last year. There was a ‘rival’ e-petition which has recently closed and I’d just like to update you on the relative strength of both petitions, nationally…
EPIC FAIL 4 – the scale of the fail
We (because I am sure that you, dear reader, signed the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting) have been luxuriating in the glow of the size of support for our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting for a few months but now that the ‘rival’ e-petition in support of grouse shooting has closed, on a…
Socio-economics of grouse shooting
A masters student at Harper Adams is investigating the socio-economics of grouse shooting with an online survey that appears to be open to anyone but seems to be mostly circulated among gamekeepers on Facebook! Call me cynical if you like, but I just wonder whether this might emerge at some future date as ‘a detailed…
Caring Tories
The Countryside Alliance seems to think that it owns the Conservative Party – I’ve sometimes wondered the same. The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation has issued a manifesto for the future which calls for ‘an inquiry into commercial driven shoots’ and calls for ‘a review of the industry of shooting live birds for sport shooting’. I…
EPIC FAIL!!!
Grouse shooting is supposed to be popular – well not according to this perfectly fair comparison of support for grouse shooting compared with its radical, extreme and outrageous alternative of banning driven grouse shooting. Today is the last day of the e-petition set up as a rival to our own. If it receives 98,000…