The story of Bowland Betty is one of a Hen Harrier satellite-tagged in Bowland in 2011 and then travelling around much of upland Britain before being found dead on a Yorkshire grouse moor in June 2012. Bowland Betty was shot, not necessarily on the Swinton Estate on which she was found, but most probably nearby,…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
A sense of place
At the New Networks for Nature event there were lots of good bits. There was a bit where three people talked about Sense or Spirit of Place. One of the speakers was poet Andrew Forster who lives in the Lake District now, but used to live somewhere else, in Scotland. I guess that there were…
Thunderclap #justiceforannie close to 5,000,000 social reach
There are still nearly three weeks until the end of November – and at the end of November a message will go out to almost five million people on social media (Twitter, Facebook and tumblr) asking them to support the e-petition to get a debate in parliament over driven grouse shooting. If you have a…
Bradford council votes unanimously against heather burning on Ilkley Moor
Last night Bradford Council voted unanimously (9/9) to recognise the significant environmental harm caused by heather burning and to implement a heather cutting programme. Burning has been retained for circumstances where it can be clearly shown as the only option available, which will require a substantial cost/benefit analysis to prove – not easy at all….
Dear Bradford Council – please ban the burn
Dear Councillor Love, I write to you because you are the chair of Bradford Council’s Environment & Waste Management Overview & Scrutiny Committee regarding the review of whether to allow burning to be included in the Ilkley Moor Management Plan. I am not a Bradford resident but I am a frequent visitor to the area….
Talks given
I’ve been talking to Yorkshire recently – has it been listening? I’ve never given exactly the same talk twice in my life – that’s partly because every talk is somewhat tailored to the audience (as best as one can – sometimes one doesn’t know that much about the audience) and they are usually of slightly…
#justiceforannie thunderclap
‘Annie‘ was a female Hen Harrier which was found shot on a grouse moor in Scotland. She has become the symbol for attracting people to sign up to a social media thunderclap tagged as #justiceforannie. This was the idea of the Moving Mountains Nature Network (@MMNNActionUK) and it will send out a message about our…
Autumnwatch – looking forward to the Hen Harrier update
When Springwatch ended (in the spring!) we were all trying to assimilate the fact that five male Hen Harriers had ‘disappeared’ from active nests in Lancashire and Cumbria. Since then a highly experienced nest photographer, Gordon Yates, has written a Guest Blog here explaining how unlikely this is to happen (and the photographs on this…
Don’t get too attached to Holly and Chance
Members of the public will be able to follow the movements of two female Hen Harriers tracked via satellite tags as part of the RSPB Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project. A new website will enable us all to follow the movements of Holly and Chance as they travel around the country. For security reasons, in other…
Intensification of grouse moor management in Scotland
Today the League Against Cruel Sports publish a report by Andy Wightman (land ownership expert) and Ruth Tingay (raptor expert) on Scottish grouse moors. It seems, to me, to be a bit of a departure for LACS as its full of rather dry facts – dry, that is, until you put them all together in…