This book, out of 25+ I reviewed in 2019, was the title I chose as my wildlife book of the year – I recommend it highly. You can buy this book from Bookshop.org and I have set up a booklist to make that easy through this link https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/MarkAvery Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org…
Tag: grouse shooting
Countryside Alliance clash with Defra policy on grouse hand-outs
The Countryside Alliance is giving Chris Packham a little rest and is turning its nastiness towards Tony Juniper, Michael Gove’s proposed new Chair of the hapless Natural England (who will appear before the Efra committee on Tuesday). According to the Sunday Telegraph, campaigners representing ‘farming, countryside communities and businesses‘, (though only the Countryside Alliance is…
Wicken on Friday evening
I paid a visit to Wicken Fen on Friday evening – it was such a lovely day I wanted to get out and away from a computer for a while. And with my NTS membership card it’s free to get in. Let’s cut to the punchline – we saw a male Hen Harrier twice. Twice,…
Government response: not so much poor as awful.
Les Wallace’s epetition, having secured over 10,000 signatures, was entitled to an honest, serious and lucid response from Defra but it failed to get one. We know that these responses are signed off by government ministers and we assume that this one was signed off by the minister responsible for the areas covered by the…
NEWS: bad news for grouse shooting
It seems we have another five weeks or so to wait until the long, long, long awaited analysis of NE’s Hen Harrier tagging data is published. But the title of the paper ‘Patterns of satellite tagged hen harrier disappearances suggest widespread illegal killing on British grouse moors’ is somewhat revealing. No doubt Michael Gove and…
Coining it in
Comments Off on Coining it in
I’m doing what I choose to do – writing, campaigning and enjoying life. And I am enjoying life very much (it’s probably much better than the alternative). And the money keeps pouring in! Here is the 6-month royalty statement for my three books with Pelagic Publishing: Fighting for Birds (2012), Behind the Binoculars (with Keith…
Minor update to NE Hen Harrier data (with a new error?)
Natural England has recently, but I’ve only just noticed, published an update to its Hen Harrier data to include data from this year (and some from a little earlier too). The update shows that 5 Hen Harrier chicks were satellite-tagged in England by NE in 2018: 3 have gone missing in the North Pennines (Mabel,…
Guest blog – Blanket bog burning: what’s planned? by Bob Berzins
Natural England has outlined proposals for the restriction of burning but what difference will we see in our uplands? A Freedom of Information request has revealed the following: There is a complicated series of consents which currently allow burning to take place on blanket bog. NE say “The consents will be individually modified or revoked….
Edging closer to 10,000 signatures
Les Wallace’s epetition calling for an economic study of grouse shooting is close to 9,500 signatures. When, I think we can say ‘when’ not ‘if’ now, it gets to 10,000 signatures then it will trigger an inadequate response from Defra. I’ll look forward to reading that in due course. The map of signatures shows the…
Looking good for Les Wallace – petition nears 10,000 signatures
It’s looking good for Les Wallace’s epetition calling for a proper economic study of the costs and benefits of driven grouse shooting – but there’s still some way to go. Another 700 signatures will mean that Defra has to respond to this epetition. My guess is that they will say ‘no’ because the last thing…