Another unsatisfactory response from Defra

I met up with Sir John Randall MP earlier in the week for a chat about a range of issues – mostly about birds as Sir John is a keen birder. Yes, we covered Malta, Hen Harriers, the banning of driven grouse shooting and a range of other topics. We also talked about diclofenac use…

Vultures and diclofenac

The story about diclofenac and vulture declines is an amazing one.  And it is developing a nasty new twist. Asian vultures crashed in numbers very rapidly.  In the 1980s the Indian White-rumped Vulture was probably the commonest bird of prey in the world but its numbers (and those of other species) fell by around 99.9%…

Horse meat, Romania, vultures, Oscar Whisky, Owen Paterson and your taxes – all connected.

The connectedness of the world intrigues me.  I like making connections between facts, people, events, ideas. I’m getting a bit tired of hearing about the ‘horse meat crisis’ (eg here, here, here, here, here) only because it certainly isn’t a crisis when safe delicious horse meat is incorporated alongside safe delicious cow meat in our…