In the eight months since I launched an e-petition on the government website to ban driven grouse shooting I have become more and more convinced that it is the right thing to do – and even that it is inevitable. Standing just short of 21,000 signatures, this e-petition now has four weeks to gather a…
Tag: grouse moor
Sunday book review – What Nature does for Britain by Tony Juniper
Is nature beautiful or is it useful? Should we protect nature for its own sake or for our own sakes? Is nature priceless or can it have a value put on it? The answer to these questions can all be ‘Yes to both’ but we don’t treat the natural world as though we would say…
OK, Hawk and Owl Trust – where are you?
A recap: the Hawk and Owl Trust has, unbeknownst to most of its members, become very keen on Hen Harrier ‘brood management’ (known to many as brood meddling). This move has positioned the H&OT very strangely in one of the most contentious debates in UK conservation. Rare Bird Alert held an online poll which showed…
Sunday book review – Horus the Peregrine Falcon by John Miles
This book is aimed at children but I’m just a big kid so I enjoyed it too. Horus, a young Peregrine, lives in London and visits many well-known London landmarks. The point is made that he may be safer in the city than if he ventured onto a grouse moor (which did make me smile)….
Round up
Some stuff that caught my eye: e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting stands at 20,752 signatures. Thank you everyone. By the way, this is more than 10,000 more than GWCT, BASC etc could scrape together for their e-petition which tells you quite a lot. The Lodge Hill proposal has been ‘called in’ Countryside Alliance Chair…
Sunday book review – Ten Million Aliens by Simon Barnes
If you are a fan of Simon Barnes then you will love this book – it is essence of Barnes. If you love nature then you will probably love this book – it is essential reading for nature lovers. Quirky views, beautifully written, and dispensing fascinating facts every few sentences, this is a thoughtful celebration…
Chris Packham leaves Hawk and Owl Trust
It’s going to be an interesting trustees’ meeting next week for the Hawk and Owl Trust. Earlier this morning it emerged in a tweet from Chris Packham that he had resigned as the H&OT President. No reason was given, but we can be pretty sure that Chris’s move was not wholly unconnected with the stance…
Compromising
There is no stopping the Hawk and Owl Trust’s Chair, Philip Merricks, in his eagerness to tell us all how brilliant a brood management scheme is, and how popular it is, and how clever it is, and yet there is little start to him telling us what it is. We are told by Philip that…
Bit by bit, answers are emerging…
I’m grateful to the Chair of the Hawk and Owl Trust for some attempts to answer some queries posted here yesterday (see comment by Philip Merricks on this blog and an abridged version copied with my comments below). The Hawk and Owl Trust is, of course, under no obligation to answer questions on this blog…
Just tell us how it could work
There are, it seems, several strong proponents for a Hen Harrier brood management scheme, which seem to number the GWCT, BASC, the Moorland Association, the National Gamekeepers Organisation and the Hawk and Owl Trust. There are some people who are dead against the very idea of a brood management scheme, although not, as best I…