Together we are powerful – that was the message that thousands of people sent to our politicians in London this afternoon – and others were sending the same message in other cities across the UK and across the world this weekend. How many of us were there? I don’t know. I’d guess 20,000-40,000 but maybe…
Tag: grouse shooting
Sunday book review – Yorkshire Dales by John Lee
Sometimes I have a book for a while and I keep putting it down and the voice in my head says ‘I’ll settle down and read it a bit later’ and when that happens it’s a pretty good bet that I’m not going to be gripped by the book. This was one of those books…
Small footnote to sad story.
The story of Bowland Betty is one of a Hen Harrier satellite-tagged in Bowland in 2011 and then travelling around much of upland Britain before being found dead on a Yorkshire grouse moor in June 2012. Bowland Betty was shot, not necessarily on the Swinton Estate on which she was found, but most probably nearby,…
A sense of place
At the New Networks for Nature event there were lots of good bits. There was a bit where three people talked about Sense or Spirit of Place. One of the speakers was poet Andrew Forster who lives in the Lake District now, but used to live somewhere else, in Scotland. I guess that there were…
An event
I spent Thursday evening and Friday and Saturday at the New Networks for Nature meeting – it was great in an inspiring, relaxing, challenging and humorous mixture. But the best bit, the very best bit, the very very best bit, was on Friday morning when George Monbiot and Tony Juniper debated, in a very friendly,…
Thoughts on Inglorious from Ronnie Graham
Mark writes: below you’ll find a long series of comments on Inglorious by Ronnie Graham (of whom I know, but who don’t know personally). I thought you might find it interesting because Ronnie is interesting – a shooter and a raptor worker. His comments are reproduced in whole below and my comments (which I have…
#justiceforannie thunderclap
‘Annie‘ was a female Hen Harrier which was found shot on a grouse moor in Scotland. She has become the symbol for attracting people to sign up to a social media thunderclap tagged as #justiceforannie. This was the idea of the Moving Mountains Nature Network (@MMNNActionUK) and it will send out a message about our…
Autumnwatch – looking forward to the Hen Harrier update
When Springwatch ended (in the spring!) we were all trying to assimilate the fact that five male Hen Harriers had ‘disappeared’ from active nests in Lancashire and Cumbria. Since then a highly experienced nest photographer, Gordon Yates, has written a Guest Blog here explaining how unlikely this is to happen (and the photographs on this…
Intensification of grouse moor management in Scotland
Today the League Against Cruel Sports publish a report by Andy Wightman (land ownership expert) and Ruth Tingay (raptor expert) on Scottish grouse moors. It seems, to me, to be a bit of a departure for LACS as its full of rather dry facts – dry, that is, until you put them all together in…
Two AGMs – RSPB
Ahead of today’s RSPB AGM, Martin Harper posted a very robust blog about the RSPB’s position on driven grouse shooting (click here). Just as I did yesterday, Martin asked the question whether there are any grouse moors out there that do all the right things. He clearly doesn’t know of any (which makes licensing a…