Mown down – the Grasslands Trust

Last week’s news that the Grasslands Trust has gone into liquidation is sad to hear but it may only be the first and most public sign of the impact of the recession on our tangled bank of wildlife conservation organisations. I know many of the Grasslands Trust’s staff personally, including their Chief Executive Lucy Cooper,…

Leading the way

Do you remember that the Shooting Times were given a copy of a WWT Council paper on their position on lead ammunition  back in the spring?  As I said at the time, it’s hardly surprising that a nature conservation organisation is against the use of a type of ammunition that poisons some of its victims…

Book signings

At the beginning of the Bird Fair weekend I had never done a book signing – but by the end I had done 10. You might imagine that this involves a team of helpers marshalling the eager crowds of expectant book-purchasers into an orderly queue whilst the author pens witticisms in the title pages of…

Send WWT £10 now! I have.

I’ve mentioned the spoon-billed sandpiper a few times in this blog (eg here and here).  There is a very brave, uncertain and exciting rescue attempt being made to save this bird from extinction by a bunch of organisations: WWT, RSPB, BirdLife International and Birds Russia (with help from loads of other people). WWT have produced…

And the winners and losers are…

The two polls for your favourite and least favourite UK wildlife NGOs are now closed.  Thank you for voting. Across the two polls, over 2400 votes were cast: 1330 in the poll for the favourite organisation and 1085 in the poll for the least favourite.  This seems to show that despite a few voices saying…

Firing blanks

When I worked at the RSPB I got a media summary every day.  I would look forward to Thursday as the Shooting Times would always deliver a few laughs.  You could tell that when there wasn’t anything of great interest to write about in the shooting world they would fill their pages with lurid stories…

Marmite poll

You have 10 days to vote in this poll of which wildlife NGO you like the most – and which (out of those listed of course) you like the least. The interim results are fascinating with the RSPB leading the ‘likes’ but also third in the ‘loathes’.  BASC is leading in the ‘loathed’ stakes. There…

Love ’em or hate ’em

Yesterday I launched a new poll – or actually two of them – on this website through my (free) monthly newsblast. These two polls give you the opportunity to vote for your favourite and least favourite UK nature conservation organisation. Are wildlife NGOs like Marmite – you either love ’em or hate ’em? We’ll see….

Just like Cleopatra’s nose?

It was a dreary morning and I felt a bit grumpy as I made my way past Birmingham on the M42 heading south. It was rainy and drizzly and the traffic was difficult.  I was surprised to see snow on the Malverns to my right and not at all surprised that I could hardly make…

The tangled bank

This is quite a long blog – for you it’s a ‘cup of tea and two chocolate digestives’ blog, for me it was a ‘two glasses of Rioja’ blog. And I write of the subject covered by Peter Marren in his thought-provoking opinion piece in the Independent last week (and the news piece written by…