Humberstone Bank Farm – beyond nature

Yorkshire Water is making an interesting offer – help them improve water quality, water retention and carbon storage on their land while ‘working with the sporting interest’ on an upland farm north of Blubberhouses. Blubberhouses Moor in Yorkshire is mentioned in Inglorious (page 59) as the site where a stroppy rich man, Lord Walsingham, shot…

Four interesting cases – #1

At the BAWC conference I read out some accounts of illegal persecution that had not resulted in court cases, let alone convictions. They illustrate what is apparently happening, and also how difficult it is to get a conviction because of the circumstances of these crimes. This is the first of four such accounts I’ll publish…

Mountain of mountain hares

A few lads out and about on the Lecht road a couple of weeks ago. I wonder what they were up to? Take a closer look… The back of that vehicle is full of a mountain of Mountain Hares.  So the voluntary restraint seems to be working as well as we might have expected then?…

Torch the parks

As I drove north up the A1 through Yorkshire, plumes of smoke were rising from our National Parks: the North York Moors on the right and the Yorkshire Dales on the left.  They were being torched in order to provide the right conditions for unnaturally high densities of Red Grouse. Passing through parts of Yorkshire,…

Awful of Natural England, and confused of RSPB

  BBC Wildlife Magazine has a good article about the Hen Harrier plan (welcomed by the RSPB) which will do nothing for the Hen Harrier.  I am quoted as saying that neither the RSPB nor Natural England should have agreed a plan which does not have targets in it. What is a plan without a…