We are often told that Hen Harriers depend on grouse moors for their survival – this is a big lie rather than a small one. The fact is that Hen Harrier breeding success over a long period of time (in England and Scotland) and survival (as measured by the lack of survival of satellite-tagged birds…
Tag: grouse moor
RSPB Bird Crime report for 2018 published
The excellent annual RSPB Bird Crime report is published for 2018. 2018 seems a long time ago now that we hear of raptor persecution incidents in what sometimes approaches real time. Having a review of the problem to hand is very valuable – particularly if it can be used to bring about significant action from…
I wonder who got that changed…?
Earlier this year the North Pennines AONB Partnership published a draft of its new Management Plan 2019-2024. Consultations were held and a report setting out the results of those consultations was promised, but it has not yet appeared as far as I’ve seen – I’ve been looking now and again. The draft remained on the…
A plea from the heart
John Armitage is an old colleague of mine from the RSPB and was formerly what then was a Regional Officer, but would now be a Regional Director, for what would then have been Northwest England but would now be about half of Northern England. He had a long and detailed involvement in the Forest of…
Remember this? (1)
Protected wildlife is commonly and illegally killed on grouse moors.
Ban driven grouse shooting
We’re still on Day 2 and the e-petition calling for a ban of driven grouse shooting is over a third of the way towards a Westminster Hall debate. Here’s a map of where those signatures come from; Here are constituencies with 100+ signatures already: Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Drew Hendry MP (SNP), 209 signatures…
The Inglorious 12th
Intensive grouse shooting is in the news like never before: Natural England Chair, Tony Juniper, calls for vicarious liability for wildlife crimes (as did his predecessor of course – but this time it is at the beginning of his tenure and not at the end)(see Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times) Labour calls for review of…
Inglorious Debate by Gill Lewis
Gill Lewis is an author (see here and here) and spoke at yesterday’s Hen Harrier Day event (and see here). The Glorious Twelfth is the best day of the year. It just simply isn’t true to say Driven grouse shooting is underpinned by wildlife crime And that the intensive burning of the moors is damaging…
Hen Harrier Day event tomorrow
The weather forecast (Saturday morning) is good for tomorrow – it’s going to be a bit windy today! We’ll be checking the forecast and suggest you do too! An update from Carsington at midday Saturday was that the weather then was ‘Very wet and not a little windy’ but that the forecast was better for…
Country Life makes a lot of sense
This is a very well-written and fairly accurate editorial in Country Life magazine. You’ll see that it says many of the things that I have said myself in the blog post before this one. I’d written all of that blog before I saw the Country Life editorial so I was interested to see how similar…