I recently wrote to the RSPB’s new Chair of Council, Sir Andrew Cahn, with a list of 10 questions about what the RSPB is up to these days – click here. I received a response on Friday and here I post the RSPB’s answers to the first four of my questions with more to follow…
Tag: RSPB
RSPB press release – Slender-billed Curlew considered extinct
Global extinction of a bird from mainland Europe and the Mediterranean confirmed by scientists This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The last irrefutable sighting of the Slender-billed Curlew was in February 1995 in Morocco. This new study is a stark warning of the need to…
Sunday book review – The Joy of Birdwatching (various authors)
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Not intended, I’m sure, as a sequel to the 1972 classic, The Joy of Sex, but potentially a book to get the pulse racing if you are keen to see lots of species of bird all over the world. I’ve seen c1400 or so, a great many of them whilst working, which means there are…
RSPB makes a statement
Yesterday, the RSPB made a statement about its ‘comprehensive review of operations’ – click here. I’ve pasted the full statement, in blue, below as it’s not that easy to find on the RSPB website. It’s certainly not front-page news. A few comments on these 1149 words: I was itching to edit it into something more closely…
Open letter to the new Chair of RSPB
Email to Sir Andrew Cahn, RSPB Chair Dear Sir Andrew, Congratulations on becoming Chair of RSPB Council, although I have to say that at the online AGM I voted against your appointment, not because I have anything against you personally but because I know practically nothing about you but I didn’t much like the look…
RSPB calls for licensing of gamebird shooting across the UK
Illegal bird of prey killing must end, urges RSPB Birdcrime report The Birdcrime report, which reviews the past 15 years, reveals 1,344 birds of prey were illegally killed between 2009-2023, with crimes continuing to emerge. These criminal acts target threatened species including Golden Eagles, Goshawks and Hen Harriers. The majority of incidents are associated with…
The RSPB AGM 2024
I attended most of the RSPB’s online AGM on Saturday after having a bit of a struggle to get registered for it. I was there from the beginning until I had heard that my friend and former colleague Euan Dunn had been given the prestigious RSPB Medal this year. That news was, in some ways,…
RSPB press release – Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction
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Tiny wasp helps protect island bird species threatened with extinction One of the world’s rarest birds, Wilkins’ Bunting, has been handed a much-needed lifeline by a small species of parasitoid wasp. Only found on the remote Nightingale Island in the South Atlantic, the bunting’s food source was threatened by an invasive alien scale insect. Conservationists…
Guest blog – The Faroe Islands’ Grindadráp: whose business is it? by Alick Simmons
Alick Simmons spent most of his career in public service serving as the UK Food Standards Agency’s Veterinary Director (2004-2007) and the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer (2007-2015). He is the current chair of the Zoological Society of London’s Ethics Committee on Animal Research and a member of the Wild Animal Welfare Committee. He…
Guest blog – Walshaw Turbine 17 by Nick MacKinnon
Nick MacKinnon is a freelance teacher of Maths, English and Medieval History, and lives above Haworth, in the last inhabited house before Top Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he founded the successful Campaign to Save Radio 4 Long Wave while in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ won…