Standing up for Nature
I was driving across a moor in County Durham in January and I spotted this female Black Grouse from the car. It is the first close photograph I have ever managed of a female Black Grouse. Some books call them Greyhens but they are brown rather than grey so that seems like quite a daft…
Bird of prey persecution crimewave during lockdown The RSPB has received a surge in reports of birds of prey being illegally killed since lockdown began The majority of incidents have been on or close to sporting estates managed for game bird shooting The public are being asked to stay vigilant and report crimes against birds of prey The RSPB’s Investigations Unit has been…
My name is Kevin Cumming. I work for a charity called the Langholm Initiative (LI) based in the town of Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. I hold a BA (hons) in Business Administration and an MSc in Conservation and Management of Protected Areas. Currently I manage the LI’s Wild Eskdale project which aims…
Natural England is expected soon to bow to the almost inevitable and drop any plans for brood meddling of Hen Harriers in 2020. All Natural England fieldwork is suspended at the moment in line with government instructions on non-essential travel. Natural England is re-allocating staff resources to priority areas in an attempt to ensure that…
Yesterday’s two blog posts on the decision of Natural England to license the taking of a very small number of Peregrine chicks for captive breeding by falconers caused quite a storm (see here and here). Here are my thoughts: Many thanks to Gary Wall for writing a blog and for responding to all of the…
New figures showing the shocking scale of grouse moor burning have been released by a wildlife organisation ahead of the season officially closing tomorrow. Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors (BBYM) has compiled more than 550 reports of the county’s heather moorland being burnt — an ecologically-destructive practice performed to engineer habitat for grouse which are…
Despite the shooting industry trying to put on a confident front that it will be unaffected by a global pandemic touching, heavily touching, every other aspect of human life, it seems that the reality is very different. Pheasant and partridge shooting are currently particularly affected because of their dependence on massive imports of eggs and…
We went back to court, to the Court of Appeal, to appeal against the judgment against us (and the RSPB) over our judicial review of brood meddling. If you recall, one of the three judges, Sir Patrick Elias, was taken ill at lunchtime and so the case was … well I’m not quite sure what…
I know how some in the shooting industry like to make out that I am coining it in from writing Inglorious and that I’m just in it for the money. So wrong! Here is my latest royalty statement from Bloomsbury as far as it applies to Inglorious. Lots of numbers but if you were to…
The Guardian website is running this story ahead of tomorrow’s Observer. It states that the National Trust, Yorkshire Water and United Utilities have all put major restrictions on routine heather burning as practised by grouse shooting interests, and not just for this year. It is of course notable that these three landowners have the public…