Another thousand passed! I was on a grouse moor in Yorkshire with Chris Packham, in the Skipton and Ripon constituency actually, when I noticed we had passed this milestone and I texted the Moorland Association to ask whether they had yet found a landowner to represent their ‘sport’ at the Bird Fair. These are the…
Tag: grouse shooting
Guest blog – Words from a Young Naturalist by Tiffany Francis
Tiffany is a nature writer, illustrator and conservationist living in the South Downs, Hampshire. She is about to complete her Masters in English at University College London and volunteers for the Hampshire Wildlife Trust and Bat Conservation Trust. Her first book will be published by Bloomsbury in Spring 2018. I have never seen a hen…
Ring Ousels on the moors
This Ring Ousel was recently photographed having been killed by a fenn trap set on a pole over a ditch on Stanhope Moor in Durham. The trap would have been set to catch stoats and weasels but of course it will catch anything that sets it off – this was an unlucky Ring Ousel. Although…
Wuthering Moors 53
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I recently contacted Natural England and asked them the following questions which they have been kind enough to answer as follows: Q1: Has NE’s James Cross met Richard Bannister of the Walshaw Moor Estate in 2016? A1: Yes, he has, on 4th February 2016. Q2: What was the subject of their meeting? …
Win a signed copy of the new paperback Inglorious
It’s not a big prize, but it’s better than nothing! Let’s see whether you can predict the number of signatures on our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting at my bedtime on 31 July. That will be after 10pm but might well be before midnight – although if timing is critical, because it might be…
Inglorious – new edition in paperback
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Available from 28 July – or probably earlier! This is the paperback edition of Inglorious and it contains an extra chapter to bring things up to date.
49,000 signatures
49000 signatures. That sounds very close to 50,000 signatures. And that is half way to 100,000 signatures. And that gets us a debate on the future of grouse shooting in the Westminster parliament and much more understanding of the problems caused by the hobby of a few at the expense of the many. Here, in…
Bradford Council gives go-ahead to Ilkley grouse shooting consultation
Bradford Council gave the go-ahead to a public consultation on the future of controversial grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor at City Hall last night, a move welcomed by campaigners. ‘There is only one way to manage moorland for grouse shooting and that’s through intensively burning away and draining precious habitat, at the cost of our…
Water companies and grouse shooting
Given what we know about the impacts of intensive grouse moor management on flood risk and water quality it would be interesting to know the state of play with United Utilities, Northumbria Water, Severn Trent Water and Yorkshire Water, on how much land they own and how much is managed for grouse shooting. Of this…
How do we get to rewilded uplands?
The simple vision of rewilded uplands painted yesterday prompted a question from a reader (Ezra Lucas) that is answered, or at least discussed, here. The question is how do we get from where we are to a more rewilded upland situation, and how do we get from a post-grouse shooting world to rewilded uplands? First,…