A response to Mark Avery’s blog An everyday tale of country folk. Thanks Mark (!) for throwing down another gauntlet, for one of us in ‘Dame Fiona’s team” to pick up. I’m a relative newcomer to the Trust, but let me pick up this one, and tell you how I’ve found things on this highly…
Tag: persecution
An everyday story of country folk
Last week, a scene in a long-running play was acted to a conclusion. The play is a bit of a ‘whodunnit’ with heroes and villains – but since we haven’t yet seen the ending there is time for villains to repent. Sometimes it’s difficult to know on which side some people are until the final…
A bird of resolution
The recovery of the red kite is a great conservation success story and it’s good to see it celebrated in the regional press like here. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to see red kites, and spend at least a minute revelling in their beauty, on at least 200 days this year. They are…
Red kites
I see red kites quite often over my garden in east Northants now – practically every day if the weather is OK and I spend enough time looking. I saw one as I was on my way to the Post Office on Tuesday, and on both Tuesday and Wednesday, on trips to London, I saw…
Send a message to the Westminster government on raptor persecution please.
Please sign this e-petition and pass it on to others. It’s just over 1000 signatures as I post this.
Peregrines – moor is fewer.
I see peregrines quite often these days, but it’s usually in the middle of London (like this image is of one in the middle of Manchester) rather than in the uplands where I would only have expected to see them in my youth. This is good – I’m glad they have become commoner and more…
Quotas – has their time come?
Driven grouse shooting is not without its benefits to the economy and ecology of the uplands although we could argue for years (and have done!) over exactly what are those benefits. The trouble with it is that it is based on the illegal killing of several protected raptor species (most notably, but not exclusively, golden…
Coping with grouse shooting and coping with hen harriers
Given the scale of illegal killing of raptors associated with driven grouse shooting it would be fair enough, in my opinion, for conservation organisations to campaign for the abolition of grouse shooting – but none of them yet does. Instead, conservationists are putting their members’ money into trying to find a legal way out for…