Last week I arranged to meet Jeremy Deller to talk about Hen Harriers. We met in London and had a coffee together. I’ve never met a Turner Prize (2004) winner before, nor someone who has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I wanted to talk to Jeremy…
Tag: grouse moor
And so…
Let’s just take a step back and survey the scene. the number of Hen Harriers nesting in England over the last decade has fallen and this bird is almost extinct in England Hen Harrier Day attracted hundreds of protesters (in appalling weather) and achieved a social media reach of millions the opening of the Red…
Grouse shooters – time to give a mile
The issues surrounding driven grouse shooting are far wider than ‘just’ the despicable illegal killing of protected wildlife – but that isn’t a bad place to start. And we need to start to end it. It is clear from today’s blog by the RSPB’s Conservation Director, Martin Harper, that the RSPB feels that the criminal…
Inner steel
It’s not often that Martin Harper posts a blog on a Saturday but this one is well worth reading. Here is an extract: ‘There is little sign that the grouse moor industry is prepared to condemn, let alone end illegal killing. The industry has to prove that it can deliver the recovery of hen harriers…
RSPB will come out fighting
Whoever is behind the ill-conceived attack on the RSPB fronted by a silent and absent ex-cricketer, a silent baronet and a silent ex-nature conservationist, and carried into the pages of the Mail on Sunday (did you know that the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, owns a grouse moor?), I believe they have miscalculated. They have misconstrued…
More vegetables please and less Beefy
I’m vegetarian four days a week and so I get a bit annoyed if I have beefy rammed down my throat all the time. It’s a bit unclear what the beef is that Ian Botham has with the RSPB except for the fact that they exist. He thinks they should tell the world that they…
A few things
Here are a few things in brief: the farmland bird index declined in 2013 (as predicted here) – and to their lowest level ever. You are living in a country with fewer farmland birds than at any time in your life. Doesn’t it make you feel good? I’ll blog in more detail on this next…
Hen Harriers in the RSPB magazine
I was beginning to wonder whether my ‘A magazine formerly known as BIRDS‘ had gone astray. My mum had received hers, my daughter had hers, the lady in the Post Office mentioned that she had had hers too. I know the RSPB was founded by a group of women but I don’t remember the magazine…
The resolution of conflict or what’s right and wrong?
Shared Planet is a stimulating programme and many people were stimulated to express their irritation over the latest programme about conflict resolution in nature conservation. The Hen Harrier/grouse shooting conflict was used as an example and was discussed by a variety of people – not a very wide variety of people however. It’s well worth…
Visit to Aberdeen
It was great fun talking to a packed lecture theatre in the Zoology Department in Aberdeen about Passenger Pigeons and Hen Harriers on Tuesday evening. We also all had the opportunity to look at a stuffed Passenger Pigeon in the adjacent museum – which I always find is a rather poignant experience. I was talking…