Yesterday, at midnight, Rob Sheldon could stop looking at how his e-petition was doing and relax. His e-petition to ban the use of toxic lead ammunition had passed 17,000 signatures and had run its six-month course. 17,051 is a perfectly respectable total – and is probably more than Rob had hoped for at the beginning,…
Category: LEAD AMMUNITION
Make toxic lead ammunition a thing of the past
This is your last chance to sign Rob Sheldon’s e-petition to ban the use of toxic lead ammunition. A few more signatures would push this past the 17,000 signatures – a pretty good achievement. A reminder: this e-petition is supported by the RSPB this e-petition is supported…
Bit of a round up
I’ll be at Housmans bookshop this evening at 7pm Fineshade Wood features in this week’s Private Eye the NFU voted to be pro Remain in the EU referendum the Defra Press Office has not got back to me with an answer on whether ministers sign off responses to e-petitions my MP has not yet got…
Richard Ali writes…badly!
BASC Chief Executive, Richard Ali, wrote to the BBC yesterday (presumably to BBC Wildlife magazine). It can’t really be a letter that BASC expects to be published because it looks thrown together, is badly argued (though is very argumentative), is long and rambling, and has a split infinitive in its first line. Ali is complaining…
RSPB does something
The RSPB included a note in its April e-newsletter asking its members to sign Rob Sheldon’s e-petition on banning toxic lead ammunition. this was wittily called ‘Last chance to take the lead’. If this heralds a month of frantic activity on this subject from the RSPB, whose agreed policy is that there should be a…
That FSA response on lead
Yesterday’s response from the FSA on lead was very helpful. Here is what they wrote (in blue) and comments from me: There is no agreed safe level for lead intake. Independent scientific expert groups across the European Union advise that exposure to lead should be reduced as far as possible. You can’t get much…
Just like buses
Responses from the FSA are a little like buses – you don’t see one for a while and then two come along together. This one was very rapid though, in response to an email to them this morning I got this this afternoon. It’s in response to this morning’s blog. Here it is, in full:…
Well, well – what a coincidence
Following my blog of this morning about the appointment of Heather Hancock as Chair of the FSA I’ve received a communication from the FSA – in response to questions I posed to them when their Board meeting was broadcast live on the internet in late January. Although their response is not a complete answer to…
FSA Chair-designate is married to grouse moor (owner)
Congratulations to Heather Hancock on her appointment, from April Fools’ Day, as Chair of the Food Standards Agency. The appointment involves a time commitment of 2 to 3 days per week and remuneration at a rate of £60,000 per annum. The Food Standards Agency is a non-ministerial government department (as is Forestry Commission), which says…
Also in BB this month
As well as the good news for me in the March British Birds, there is a more substantial piece of news (as well as lots of other good stuff): a report by Prof Ian Newton FRS on the lead ammunition debate. At the beginning of his concluding remarks Ian writes ‘My own view is that…