We all make mistakes but it would normally be expected that, when made, a more gracious acknowledgement of them might follow than that of the GWCT here. It is completely untrue to suggest that an earlier draft of the letter went as follows: Dear Sir William Langley’s comment piece on the RSPB had us rolling…
Tag: grouse shooting
Join the online rally for nature
On 9 December, the day before the close of the grouse shooting season, some of us are going to gather together at a rally to ask politicians to do more for nature. One of the things that I will be asking my MP is ‘What will the Labour Party do, if it forms part of…
NERF 2
Sunday’s North of England Raptor Forum meeting was excellent. There’s something considerably comforting about being surrounded by glum northerners with accents. All the talks were good (even the one I missed by chatting outside, I was told) and it would take the length of the day for me to tell all of you all about…
Bullying doesn’t work
Yesterday the RSPB issued a toughly worded statement: The RSPB is (today) urging Defra to publish the workable elements of the Hen Harrier Action Plan, which we believe could bring about the recovery of one of England’s most beleaguered birds of prey. However, we’re also highlighting our rejection of one point of the six-point plan,…
Jeremy Deller – Turner Prize winner and Hen Harrier enthusiast
Last week I arranged to meet Jeremy Deller to talk about Hen Harriers. We met in London and had a coffee together. I’ve never met a Turner Prize (2004) winner before, nor someone who has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I wanted to talk to Jeremy…
And so…
Let’s just take a step back and survey the scene. the number of Hen Harriers nesting in England over the last decade has fallen and this bird is almost extinct in England Hen Harrier Day attracted hundreds of protesters (in appalling weather) and achieved a social media reach of millions the opening of the Red…
Grouse shooters – time to give a mile
The issues surrounding driven grouse shooting are far wider than ‘just’ the despicable illegal killing of protected wildlife – but that isn’t a bad place to start. And we need to start to end it. It is clear from today’s blog by the RSPB’s Conservation Director, Martin Harper, that the RSPB feels that the criminal…
Inner steel
It’s not often that Martin Harper posts a blog on a Saturday but this one is well worth reading. Here is an extract: ‘There is little sign that the grouse moor industry is prepared to condemn, let alone end illegal killing. The industry has to prove that it can deliver the recovery of hen harriers…
RSPB will come out fighting
Whoever is behind the ill-conceived attack on the RSPB fronted by a silent and absent ex-cricketer, a silent baronet and a silent ex-nature conservationist, and carried into the pages of the Mail on Sunday (did you know that the Daily Mail’s editor, Paul Dacre, owns a grouse moor?), I believe they have miscalculated. They have misconstrued…
Hen Harriers in the RSPB magazine
I was beginning to wonder whether my ‘A magazine formerly known as BIRDS‘ had gone astray. My mum had received hers, my daughter had hers, the lady in the Post Office mentioned that she had had hers too. I know the RSPB was founded by a group of women but I don’t remember the magazine…