Today the RSPB has withdrawn its support from the Defra Hen Harrier Plan. Well done them! Martin Harper explains in his blog that the voluntary approach (to abiding by the law!) has failed. Essentially the RSPB is saying that they do not trust the grouse shooters and have no confidence that the words they speak…
Category: THE WILDLIFE NGOs – RSPB, Wildlife Trusts Wild Justice, BSBI etc
RSPB statement just published
This statement has just appeared on Martin Harper’s blog – analysis and comment very soon.
BBS
The latest Breeding Bird Survey report – for 2015 – is out. I collected data that went into this report, and I am proud that I did. I immediately turn to Table 4 – the summary of trends for the UK (and then look briefly at Table 5 – for England) – but this time…
Debbie Pain to become CEO of WLT
John Burton, the founder and long-time Chief Executive of the World Land Trust is stepping down and his successor will be Dr Deborah Pain who is currently the Conservation Director of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. I hope to persuade John to write a Guest Blog here. For more on Debbie see…
What did Shania sing?
The RSPB really is in a pickle over its line on bird of prey persecution. Having welcomed the Hen Harrier inaction plan, welcomed the pathetic statement by the Moorland Association and disappointed many (except the Chief Exec of Songbird Survival) with its line on the Hen Harrier breeding season update, more and more people are…
The National Trust’s former shooting tenant, Mark Osborne
Mark Osborne, the exiting shooting tenant of the National Trust in the Peak District, is a very well-known name in shooting circles. He is not a nobody, he is someone for whom ‘failure is not an option’ according to Lord James Percy in Fieldsports magazine. Mr Osborne is prone to tell people that he is…
RSPB speaking softly and left its stick at home.
The RSPB continues to talk up the hopeless Defra Hen Harrier plan even though it shows no sign of making a difference on the ground. In a rather unspecific update Martin Harper says that there is only ‘a tiny handful’ of Hen Harrier nesting attempts in England to date. Tiny handful? Attempts? This long-heralded update…
RSPB appeal for information about Goshawk disappearance in Peak District
The RSPB has just released this to local media (links added by me): The RSPB is appealing for information after a Goshawk nest failed in suspicious circumstances at Dove Stone in the Peak District. On 10 May, a local raptor worker discovered the freshly abandoned Goshawk nest in conifer woodland in the Longendale Valley, which…
Thank you Steve!
I am grateful to Steve Ormerod for his guest blog of yesterday. It was good of him to respond, as he did – he didn’t have to at all. As Steve wrote, the RSPB and I share almost completely common ground on the problems as we see them. Maybe we differ here or there, but…
Guest blog by RSPB Chair of Council, Prof Steve Ormerod
Mark, As I promised, I’m responding to your questions and challenges set out in your earlier blog. You regularly and accurately point out that we are all basically after the same thing: we a future for England’s moors and hills that is free from the illegal killing of birds of prey and where land management…