Blogs

“All wildlife benefits from….” my heart sinks every time I hear those words, because they are invariably wrong. They are usually followed with the word gamekeeping, or shooting, and whichever is chosen the resulting sweeping statement reveals a degree of fundamental ignorance about the impact of game management that our opponents see straight through.

Countryfile viewers were treated to a captivating glimpse into the world of nest monitoring during Sunday's episode.

The Daily Telegraph recently reported that the RSPB is seeking contractors to undertake predation management as part of their efforts to protect curlews in Northern Ireland.

Missing Salmon Alliance members are coming together to highlight the crisis faced by this king of fish. The plight of our wild Atlantic salmon is symbolic of the wider biodiversity crisis facing our freshwater and marine environments.

The SAlmonid MAnagement Round the CHannel (SAMARCH) project, set out to deliver new information to improve the protection of our threatened wild salmon and sea trout in estuaries and coastal waters, started in 2017 and now holds its closing conference on the 14^th and 15^th of March 2023 in Southampton.

“Natural England will be making recommendations based on the science” was the verdict of Environment Minister Trudy Harrison as she closed the petitions committee debate on woodcock yesterday (Monday 27 February). 

This Monday (9 January), the Petitions Committee debated a recent e-petition calling for a ban on the use of snares. Nick Fletcher, who brought the petition, gave a detailed account of how a humane cable restraint, pioneered by the GWCT, differs from a traditional snare.

As our recent blogs have suggested there is a role for rewilding within our landscape – in some areas this could include a withdrawal from commercial farming activities – and, given we are largely a society of private landownership, we respect everyone’s right to manage their land as they wish.

sudden and marked increase in the numbers of wildlife incidents that involve the powerful
rodenticide brodifacoum has been identified by the government-run Wildlife Incident Investigation
Scheme (WIIS). Some involve either negligent misuse or intentional abuse to harm wildlife.

The plight of waders breeding in the UK is well known. All of our familiar species are in serious decline and we hear frequent warnings about local extinctions for some of them. Well known causes of decline are a loss of quality habitat due to changes in land use and intensified agricultural practices, and we are seeing increased losses of wader nests to a variety of predators.