On Monday the heather burning season opens and the hills will start to be torched. In the Labour Party’s Green Transformation document, launched last week at the Labour Conference in Liverpool, it states ‘End rotational heather burning and launch an independent review into the economic, environmental and wildlife impacts of driven grouse shooting‘. You will…
Tag: Natural England
5 and 6 December – are you coming? #justice4henharriers
Our legal challenge (and RSPB’s) of Natural England’s crazy decision to license brood meddling of Hen Harriers will be heard in the High Court, in the Royal Courts of Justice on 5 and 6 December. You can attend and watch and listen to the arguments. The public can attend. You can attend. I’d like you…
RSPB: BirdCrime report
Pole trap on Brewlands Estate, Scotland. RSPB’s Birdcrime report reveals 68 confirmed incidents of bird of prey persecution in the UK during 2017, but many illegal killings are going undetected or unreported. Incidents occurred in all 4 UK countries with England having the highest number of confirmed incidents The RSPB believes the introduction of a…
Have you heard the one about…?
Have you heard the one about the three conservationists in the station waiting room? This, I am assured, is a true story which played out in the distant north of England early on Saturday morning. Man1: Are you going to London?Man2: (with 2 excited children): Yes, I work for the RSPBMan1: ah, I work for…
Guest blog – NE, Badgers and Judgement by Dominic Woodfield
Dominic Woodfield is the Managing Director of Bioscan, a long established and well respected consultancy specialising in applied ecology. He is a life-long birder, a specialist in botany, habitat restoration and creation and in protected fauna including bats, herpetofauna and other species. He is also a highly experienced practitioner in Environmental Impact Assessment and Habitats…
RSPB press release
Somerset’s farmers make hay when the birds fly The picturesque hay-meadows of the Somerset Moors and Levels are the largest wetlands in England home to many waders and some of the rarest birds on Earth A quarter of the global population of curlews can be found in the UK, but breeding numbers have dropped dramatically…
Wuthering Moors 71
Our lawyers at Leigh Day are in regular contact with Natural England following our successful challenge of the legality of the Walshaw Moor Habitats Regulations Assessment (see here and here). We understand that any new HRA will be informed by ‘‘the peat depth survey that Natural England is seeking to carry out’ . Well done…
Three more gone – Defra’s plan is wholly inadequate.
Hen Harrier, Hilma. Photo: Steve Downing. Hen Harrier, Octavia. Photo: Steve Downing Hen Harrier, Heulwen. Photo: Guy Anderson. Three more young Hen Harriers have disappeared – all in areas of driven grouse shooting. See the RSPB Skydancer blog for details. Rory Stewart’s Hen Harrier Inaction Plan is working very, very badly – just as many…
National Trust reintroduces Water Voles on Exmoor
Water Vole. Photo: National Trust/Steve Haywood Endangered water voles are returning to a stretch of river where they have been extinct for more than 30 years – thanks to a National Trust river and waterways project. Once regularly spotted on Britain’s riverbanks, they are now the nation’s fastest declining land mammal, disappearing from 94 per…
An alternative narrative
Natural England’s answers to some questions about the failure of two Hen Harrier nests on a Yorkshire grouse moor this season were published on this blog this morning. To be fair to NE, they only responded to the questions I posed, rather than giving a full account of events on this grouse moor over the…