Category: Grouse and harriers

Natalie Bennett calls again for ban on grouse shooting

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After visiting Walshaw Moor and the flood-hit town of Hebden Bridge, Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, reiterated her  party’s call for a ban on grouse shooting. Bennett was reported in the Daily Telegraph as saying that intensive grouse moor management is  ‘incompatible with 21st-century needs of flood prevention‘ and called it a ‘conservation disaster‘. She…

Defra’s plan

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Whatever it was that Defra published yesterday, it was not an action plan to save Hen Harriers.  It was a hybrid between a Hen Harrier inaction plan and an action plan to postpone the demise of driven grouse shooting. In that regard it was generally a damp squib; a small victory for the grouse shooting…

Langholm bombshell

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The latest, blog #5, in Ruth Tingay’s series of Guest Blogs on the fascinating meeting organised by the GWCT back in November was notable for its revelation from Mark Oddy of Buccleuch Estates that the estate, for he said he was speaking as Buccleuch Estates, want lethal control of raptors, initially under licence. So Langholm…

Guest blog – Langholm Q&A by Dr Ruth Tingay

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Dr Ruth Tingay is a raptor conservationist with field experience from North & Central America, Europe, Africa, Central and SE Asia. She studied the critically endangered Madagascar Fish Eagle for a PhD at Nottingham University and is a past president of the Raptor Research Foundation. She’s currently researching the illegal persecution of raptors & its…

Debate on floods (updated with links and quotes)

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I watched the opposition day debate on the floods with interest – every minute of it. There were quite a lot of MPs, of both main political parties, taking the time to praise their constituents and to ask for promises of government money. Fair enough. Some of them were more subtle and convincing than others….