Why raptor persecution is different

There has been a little burst of correspondence in The Independent over gamekeepers (and raptor persecution)(here, here, here).  I note that one of the correspondents, Reece Fowler, crops up in quite a lot of places (including this blog) saying how nice gamekeepers are and how misunderstood (see here, here, here). I thought that Mr Fowler’s…

In a days – I mean a daze.

Sunday’s was the 600th Standing up for Nature blog since I started writing them 571 days ago. The day passed almost without me noticing the landmark. In those 571 days this blog has grown from an audience of zero to well over 7000 unique visitors a month according to the statistics provided by Google analytics….

Raptor round up

It would be perfectly possible to write about birds of prey, how wonderful they are and their troubled and shortened lives, every day on this blog.  I try not to do that because there are other sites that do it so well (raptor politics and raptor persecution Scotland) and because there are other big issues…

More good news – unless you are a raptor hater

Today the Environmental Audit Committee publishes a report on Wildlife Crime. Amongst other useful findings it recommends that the government in England and Wales introduces an offence of vicarious liability for wildlife crime (as already exists in Scotland) and makes the possession of the banned pesticide carbofuran illegal (as it already is in Scotland). In…

A burning question for the National Trust

This blog has been a bit critical of the National Trust in the past, suggesting that it isn’t taking its nature conservation work sufficiently seriously, and so  it gives me great pleasure to highlight an excellent piece of work, nearing fruition, by NT.  It’s such good news it is worth being the second blog of…