Nigel Hand, a professional herpetologist, has been at the forefront of UK reptile and adder conservation and research for over twenty years, developing a methodology of external radio transmitter attachment to track this relatively small snake. His monitoring reptiles and radio tracking adders has provided valuable insights into their secret habits and the issues they…
Category: REARED GAMEBIRDS
The gamebirds have it, the gamebirds have it.
Yesterday I asked you whether you preferred game bird, gamebird, game-bird or maybe you really weren’t the least bit fussed about it. There were a lot of very interesting comments. And the results were as follows: A resounding majority (58% of responses) of 362 responses was for gamebird with the next most popular response being…
Wild Justice gamebirds challenge in Guardian
Defra challenged over ‘unlawful’ release of 57 million game birds in UK.
Feedback on Pheasants
I’ve had some lovely feedback on my British Birds paper on Pheasants. Here are some examples: I read this excellent and thought-provoking BB review with great interest and respect! It is very balanced and well informed and one can but hope that the shooting hierarchies will think about the issues constructively – though I regret…
Rattled, rattled, rattled!
It’s a bit of a pity that today’s Farming Today piece was introduced as a legal challenge to Pheasant shooting because it isn’t – it is a legal challenge against Defra and their failure to assess the ecological impacts of gamebird releases. But apart from that I’m happy with the interview I did for Farming…
You might have missed this rally in the news
Back in April they said this – we’re going to have a rally. And they had help, advice and support from the Countryside Alliance, the National Gamekeepers Organisation (I always want to put the apostrophe in there, but they don’t…) and BASC (but it’s not just shooters, oh no!) And they did get a crowd…
Pandas attacked by Pheasants?
The Daily Telegraph quotes Jake Berry (who is unfortunately likely to have a prominent role in any Johnson government) as wanting to make the hook-beaked (eh?) Curlew ‘the panda of UK conservation.’. Jake will never persuade Curlews to eat bamboo and give up sex but maybe that wasn’t what he meant. Because this is…
The Common Pheasant – livestock or wild bird?
Wild Justice is challenging the General Licence GL26 issued by Natural England to authorise the killing of Carrion Crows to prevent serious damage to livestock. Natural England chose to include gamebirds with livestock such as lambs and piglets in this licence. The legal status of the Pheasant is complex and in this licence it appears…
Travelling thoughts
A couple of weeks ago I was srolling around Berlin on a sunny day, looking at the sights. Last week I spent a similar amount of time walking through similar parts of central London on another sunny day. In Berlin I strolled through parks and squares near museums and churches and in London I walked…
More Pheasants dumped – The Times
Yesterday’s The Times has a full page on Pheasants being dumped after shooting, and a leader, the second leader, entitled Pheasants’ Revolt too. See video here. The leader is a curate’s egg of a piece with the sensible sentence ‘Shooting has to be independently regulated and shot birds should be processed as far as possible…