I was going to write about welfare issues in horse racing – but, to be honest, I just don’t feel like it right now, so that blog is delayed, but it will come here eventually. But in the interim, have a look at the recent British Horseracing Authority report on the subject – click here.
Category: Uncategorized
Earth Hour and another hour
This evening, at 20:30, it’s Earth Hour where we are asked to turn off lights etc for an hour. I’ll be doing it – will you? And overnight we will make the twice-yearly one hour change to our clocks. Spring Forward, Fall Back, yes I know. This has become, to me, a symbol of our…
This morning
When I went to check if the milk had been delivered at 0620 this morning I found a pint of skimmed milk and a decorated pebble. The pebble made me happy and I’ve been using it as a paperweight while reading some papers for a meeting, out in the garden, in the sunshine. Every time…
Chatting to Charlie
Comments Off on Chatting to Charlie
Charlie Moores is a very nice man. His latest good idea is to have a series of podcasts ‘checking in’ with various people. Here’s him checking in with me – recorded on Sunday morning – where we talk about life, birds flying past, Wild Justice’s legal challenge against Natural Resources Wales and a few other…
Response, of a kind, from DEFRA
Guy Shrubsole asked DEFRA some questions – see here. They redacted some information on apparently scientific reports they had received. I asked them some questions about that. They have replied as follow. I do have some queries and some grounds for complaint. This letter could be summed up in two words and it doesn’t take…
A year ago
A year ago this very important paper looking at the fate of satellite-tagged Hen Harriers was published in Nature Communications. It’s open access and so you can read it but it does take quite a bit of reading. Here is my post from last year which explains what the paper found – several people have…
Natural solace
I keep hearing that we are confined to our homes but that is a very urban perspective on social isolation. For those of us who have countryside on our doorsteps we are much better off. Yesterday I walked the five paces from my front door to the car, drove about three miles and went for…
Nature as a source of solace, in times of corona
Yesterday I spent some time looking out from my front door as the school children were heading to school. They didn’t seem to me to be whining but some had shining faces and many did have satchels or their modern equivalents (see here) but there were definitely fewer of them than usual. And I wondered…
Nature conservation under coronavirus
Our wildlife conservation organisations are small, medium or large businesses within one very particular sector. I ‘phoned around a few of them today to ask what they are doing as a result of coronavirus. Just about all of them said that they were sticking to government guidelines – and they are all waiting for, and…
Cheltenham – the craic
The allure of the Cheltenham festival (of racing) for me is rather little about horses. I know very little about horses – almost all of them look much the same to me. The attraction is mostly about the people – so much of the attraction of life is about the people isn’t it? Going to…