This post exposes the worthlessness of Defra’s/NE’s formal agreements with grouse moor managers in the matter of burning of vegetation of blanket bogs. Introduction: Grouse moor managers want to burn our uplands to blazes in order to maximise the habitat quality for Red Grouse – the shooting of which can be sold at high prices…
Tag: grouse shooting
Sunday book review – The Seabird’s Cry by Adam Nicholson
Reviewed by Ian Carter Adam Nicolson’s father bought the Shiant Isles in the Hebrides when he was twenty: £1,300 for 500 acres including a rat-infested bothy and, at the right time of year, no small number of breeding seabirds. We are told he loved the place more than anywhere else in the world, a love…
Minister – do your job!
Dear Dr Coffey, Each week seems to bring news of another Hen Harrier disappearing on or near a driven grouse moor. You must have been briefed on the findings of the study presented in Vancouver back in August on the analysis of NE’s Hen Harrier data. You do know that the science suggests that there…
Another Hen Harrier down
RSPB press release: Yet another hen harrier disappears in suspicious circumstances in North Yorkshire This is the ninth tagged hen harrier in three months to vanish in similar circumstances in the UK Hen harriers have declined by a quarter since 2004 and are on the brink of extinction in England North Yorkshire is ‘worst county in…
Wuthering Moors 78 – NE and Defra must act
This post is about damaging tracks, past and present, on protected moorland. I’d like to take you back in time on Walshaw Moor. This photograph was posted on this blog in Wuthering Moors 39, 13 September 2013. I pointed out that this place was marked on the OS map as a stream but now (in…
Wuthering Moors 77 – a track going nowhere
Introduction: This post is about a track that a grouse shooting estate wants to build across their grouse moor. The land is designated because of its nature conservation importance. I, with the help of some very clever lawyers and the financial support of many of you, have stopped this track being built once on the…
12-0 and 0-7; quite striking results!
The news of the four Hen Harriers which disappeared mysteriously on grouse moors in Scotland is shocking. That is, shocking in the sense of morally reprehensible rather than really rather surprising. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, an interesting aspect of this news is the revelation that 12 young Hen Harriers have been discovered…
Four Hen Harriers disappear on Scottish grouse moors
Press release from RSPB: Margot – a Hen Harrier last heard from on 29 August from a driven grouse moor on the Aberdeenshire/Moray border. RSPB Scotland is appealing for information following the suspicious disappearance of four satellite tagged hen harriers over the last 10 weeks. All of the birds were tagged at various nest sites,…
KOS it makes sense!
I spoke at the Kent Ornithological Society’s conference in Canterbury on Saturday. I’d like to thank the organisers for inviting me and laying on a great day for us all. The road to Canterbury passes too close to Rainham Marshes to ignore them (and a Cattle Egret or two), and too close to Gravesend not…
Guest blog – the launch of Revive by Robbie Marsland
For the past 30 years Robbie has had a background in social change. He has held senior management roles in campaigns on the issues of homelessness, human rights, international development and animal welfare. He has been the Director of the League against Cruel Sports Scotland for the past four years and for six years before…