Charles Moore in the Spectator, ‘It would be wearisome (not least because Matt Ridley’s piece last week set it all out so well) to go through how most such accusations about the killing of hen harriers are false, how hen harriers do better on kept moors than on unkept ones…‘ Prof Rhys Green and Brian Etheridge:…
Tag: grouse shooting
Tough for Tufty on grouse moors in Scotland
Those who were being taught how to cross the road safely in the 1960s will remember the starring role of Tufty in the Green Cross Code. Back then it was still possible to use a Red Squirrel in a national advertising campaign without most people creasing their brows and asking ‘What’s that? It’s red’. I…
Hen Harrier missing over…guess what?…a grouse moor
The RSPB announced today that a young male Hen Harrier, fitted with a satellite transmitter as part of the Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project, has gone missing on a grouse moor in the Monadhliath Mountains, south-east of Inverness. The bird, named Elwood, was the only chick to fledge from a nest in Banffshire, which was being…
Bird Fair debate on future of grouse shooting
We’re in the run-up to the Bird Fair (btw weather forecast suggests some rain) and one of the stand-out events on Day 1 is the ‘debate’ on the future of grouse shooting chaired by Rob Lambert and featuring Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green Party (who spoke brilliantly at the Peak District Hen Harrier…
Countryfile last night
I didn’t watch Countryfile live last night as I was doing some work – but I caught up with it in the evening. I thought Bob Elliot from the RSPB was great (as always) and I also thought that the edit was fair. It was filmed on 28 July at Geltsdale in Cumbria (and the…
Words are important
Just a minor quibble. I did several radio interviews last week and I noticed that I kept being introduced with the same words – later I discovered that they came, basically from this BBC news story by Claire Marshall. The introduction on a series of BBC local radio stations often started by saying that animal…
Those awkward Hen Harriers
OK let’s get back to Hen Harriers. Aren’t they lovely? Those who have been defending or promoting driven grouse shooting find Hen Harriers difficult to talk about. It will be interesting to see how much utter tripe some MPs may come up with in the debate we expect to see over the future of driven…
Everybody wants a debate – bring it on
In a fair piece of reporting, the Daily Telegraph covered the arrival of our e-petition at over 100,000 signatures. That was yesterday wasn’t it – seems ages ago now! Nice photo of Henry too! He’ll be unbearable! Ian Gregory of YFTB, who has done so much to help get us to the 100,000 signature threshold,…
The not-so-talented Viscount Ridley
Matt Ridley and I were friends a long time ago, but we haven’t seen each other for quite a while, and although I would gladly share a bottle of claret with Matt, we might start talking politics, climate change or grouse moors and that might spoil the mood. I remember we had a very good…
Hebden Bridge
Have a look at this article and photographs from the Ban the Burn protest at Hebden Bridge. Good luck to them! Calder Valley remains the constituency with the highest number of signatures on the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting – 679 of them as I write. I wonder whether, assuming that we get a…