Talking Naturally

Conservatives Against Fox Hunting event: 18 June 2013

Charlie — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:12:37 +0000

The anti-hunting organisation Conservatives Against Fox Hunting hosted a highly successful parliamentary table discussion to provide a briefing for anti hunting Conservative MPs.

The event, on 18th June 2013, was kindly hosted by Caroline Dinenage MP

Ten anti hunting Conservative MPs attended the seated afternoon tea briefing in the House Of Commons and heard talks from key Speakers including John Cooper QC, Joe Duckworth, the CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, Robbie Marsland, the UK Director of IFAW, Dr Richard Ryder, the former Chairman and now Trustee of the RSPCA, Chris Platt, the President of ‎Esher and Walton Conservative Association and Lorraine Platt, Co Founder of Conservatives Against Fox Hunting.

At the roundtable, MPs heard talks on why the Hunting Act needs to remain in place to protect wildlife, the hunt havoc that monitors experience,the latest successful prosecutions update and the polls demonstrating the majority opinion against hunting with dogs and hare coursing being made legal again.

Photo shows Caroline Dinenage MP, John Cooper QC, Joe Duckworth, the CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, Robbie Marsland, the UK Director of IFAW, Dr Richard Ryder, the former Chairman and Trustee of the RSPCA and Blue Fox Founders

MPs also had an opportunity to meet face to face with grassroots Conservative Councillors, Presidents, Chairs, Conservative think tanks policy Directors and Agents against the repeal of the Hunting Act which bans hunting with dogs.

It was the largest anti hunt briefing table discussion to be held for anti repeal Conservative MPs in the present parliament, and Conservatives Against Fox Hunting were delighted with the high attendance by Conservative MPs.

Book Review: The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians

Charlie — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:20:54 +0000

The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians

I’m becoming very fond of Pelagic Publishing, the firm behind the new ‘The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians’ (EDA,) by Bo Beolens (known to nearly all and sundry as the Fatbirder), Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson. They seem to be specialising in bringing to market books that are niche or – to put it less ambiguously – are unlikely to sell in high volume, for which they deserve support and applause. And it’s not because their wildlife titles aren’t well-written or well-researched that they probably won’t be best-sellers, but because they’re unlikely (sadly) to find their way onto the bookshelves of most amateur naturalists, let alone members of the general public whose quest for knowledge of the natural world stops at BBC documentarys.

That’s a problem all publishers face in these austere times of course, but Pelagic are ploughing a notably brave furrow. Take the EDA as an example. I happen to know Bo, and I happen to know how hard he and his colleagues worked to write this gem of a book. A massive amount of research went into it, tracking down some incredibly obscure references, and re-checking data that online sources have requoted from quoted sources that are now buried in – to use a well-worn phrase – the mists of time. The result of all that hard work is a dictionary, one that uncovers the places or those explorers, collectors, scholars, patrons, aristocrats or Wagnerian characters immortalised in the vernacular and/or scientific names of 2,668 of the world’s amphibians (many of which are now in very real danger of extinction of course, as habitat change and disease sweeps the planet).

Arranged alphabetically, EDA is a treasure trove of ‘things you didn’t know you didn’t know’ and leafing through it is a great way to idle away an hour or two. Perhaps it’s a reflection on my own ignorance and more people than I realise do actually know that Molloch, who appears in the scientific name of the Black-spotted Frog, was a sun god of the ancient Canaanites, or that Jason Speer, VP of Quality Float Works Inc of Illinois, donated enough towards research to have a poisonous frog named after him, but somehow I doubt it. There are some more well-known names in here – eg Pere David who is remembered via a deer and a raft of Asian birds, Johann von Spix of Macaw fame, Bullock who has rather lovely North American oriole named after him, the rainforest activist and silvery-voiced Sting (who has his own tree frog), and Simon Bolivar who (as EDA points out) is one of the most significant figures in South American history. On the whole though this is a lovingly compiled list of amphibians and the folk who discovered them that many hardcore herpetologists may well be partly familiar but that will be new to most of us.

Which brings me back to the point I started with: EDA is probably not going to be a book that sells in high volume. It’s not illustrated, it’s written in a mostly straightforward and pithy way without flourish or extraneous comment, but this is still a wonderful book, because – in my humble opinion – while not many of us need to know that Karunaratne’s Narrow-mouthed Frog is named after a Sri Lankan zoologist and entomologist, I find it uplifting that Bo and the two Michaels have featured him and a whole world full of diligent, hard-working individuals (1,609 of them to be exact) in a book – and that Pelagic have backed the project and clearly worked hard to help present it in as readable way as possible.

I would assume that anyone ‘into’ amphibians, and perhaps into better understanding the history of wildlife discovery, will buy EDA immediately. I’d like to think so. Despite a high-ish cover price (around £35.00) I hope others will give it a look to, and above all I hope that writers like Bo Beolens and publishers like Pelagic (who do print more ‘popular’ titles in case anyone reads this and is given the impression that they don’t!), keep writing and publishing compilations of data and info that the internet was supposed to kill off but that more than ever deserve to be available as a hard copy that we can all pick up and enjoy.

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-907807-41-1 | Publication Date: 01/04/2013 | Pages: 250 | Dimensions: 244 x 177mm

Speaking out: short interviews from the London against the Badger Cull march

Charlie — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:45:14 +0000

A Talking Naturally podcast recorded at the London against the Badger Cull march on June 1st 2013. Capturing the atmosphere of the march (hopefully anyway!) it includes contributions from marchers, from representatives from Blue Badger, League against Cruel Sports, the Hunt Saboteurs Association, as well as Bill Oddie, and two of the organisers of this fantastic display of compassion and activism. And listen out for a wonderful ‘Stop the Cull’ chant a few minutes in led by a very young lad who was proudly marching with his parents….

WHAT DO WE WANT? – STOP THE CULL – WHEN DO WE WANT IT? – NOW!

Talking Naturally has made this podcast to support wildlife, conservation, and animal welfare. If you can use this podcast in any way – or even just use excerpts from it – please feel free to download, use and/or distribute it.

Remember, Gunmen not Marksmen will kill Badgers

Charlie — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 19:16:14 +0000

Guest post by Lawrie Phipps, Vice Chair, League Against Cruel Sports and avid birder:

What’s in a name? Quite a lot actually. Sometimes an accidental naming through translation can have comedy results such as when advertising copy in Italy for UK-owned Schweppes Tonic Water encouraged Italians to mix their gin with “Schweppes Toilet Water.”

Language is also playing a part in the politics and decimation of British Wildlife. Aside from the scientific evidence that already demonstrates that a cull is pointless, cruel and will fail, DEFRA seem to be using language as a marketing tool. Informing the British public that Badgers will be culled by Marksmen. A term that many of the public will associate with a clean shot at long distance, with the subject being killed outright.

In the UK British Army to qualify for Marksman a soldier must achieve a score of 85% or more of the total Highest Possible Score for the entire shoot. Soldiers achieving a non-marksman passing score are NOT permitted to re-shoot practices in order to qualify for Marksman. Soldiers who qualify as Marksmen are entitled to wear the Marksman badge for one year before they must requalify.

The Government have not licensed Marksmen, that is just a name that they have given to the contractors. These are not men that have gone through the rigours of marksman training, they are just men with guns, gunmen.

Obviously DEFRA thought long and hard with the name, and news corporations have brought into the rhetoric. The reality of the cull is that gunmen will be going out into the countryside at night, with guns and taking pot-shots at a small dark mammal that grubs around in the undergrowth. DEFRA claim that it will be humane, efficient and clean. We know that to be a lie waiting to be shown through the suffering of British Badgers.

A scapegoat for the dairy industry, a political toy for the ConDem coalition

The Cull, is unnecessary, Badgers will suffer, if you care at all please lobby your MP for the vote on 5th June, details here. And whilst we’re at it perhaps we could ask the BBC to use the correct term, gunman, not marksman.

Badger at Twilight, don’t be fooled that badgers will be killed in a clean way.

TN is going to London

Charlie — Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:43:14 +0000

Ecological collapse: is this warning stark enough…

Charlie — Thu, 30 May 2013 08:42:52 +0000

just 100 years ago it would have been almost inconceivable for any of us to contemplate the reality that we could be destroying life on Earth. Wildlife seemed abundant and was being shot or collected in vast numbers, the global population was less than 2 billion, and the industrial revolution was in full swing. In 1913 Henry Ford put moving assembly belts into his factory and the mass production of the car with its reliance on fossil fuels took off. Mass travel, mass production, and mass consumption was on the way, but in the meantime most people were more concerned with disease, poverty, and death.

Global information was of course still largely unavailable to anyone but the wealthy, but even if it had been would we have had any indication of what the world would become? If we’d been forward thinking we might have noted the demise of the Passenger Pigeon. Once the most abundant bird on the planet (flocks numbered in the billions) there was just one left, a female in a cage in Cincinati Zoo. She was to die a year later. We might also have noted the extinction of the Great Auk in the 1840s or the collapse of the American Bison.

Some people had noticed of course. The RSPB was founded in response to the widespread use of feathers (and even whole birds) by the fashion trade, a young Aldo Leopold was beginning to form views that would influence ecologists the world over, and across the planet local conservation groups (made up mainly of academics and/or the wealthy who had the time and money to focus on anything but their own survival) were looking around them and asking whether we could continue to slaughter so much wildlife and change so much of the environment without there being any effect.

I have no way of knowing but I suspect that none of them could have predicted just how bad things were going to get, that a hundred years later we would be facing disastrous climate change, mass extinctions, and a human population heading towards nine billion with all the crushing demands on the planet’s biodiversity that would bring.

And I suspect none of them could have predicted the publication of this shocking and damning ‘Consensus Statement from Global Scientists, part of which is posted below:

VegFestUK hits Bristol

Charlie — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:32:45 +0000

How could I stay away? I live near Bristol, the sun was shining this weekend, and thousands of like-minded, animal-loving, empathetic, caring people would be in one place to enjoy great vegan food and innovative vegan products. VegFestUK: trying making the world a better place in other words!

I only had the Sunday free, which meant I missed the huge crowds of the previous two days (many of whom were staying on for the bands playing in the evening) but that did make navigating the marques and stalls a little easier. However, can I just offer huge respect to the individuals, organisations and retailers who on this third day of ‘festivities’ were still smiling, made time to chat to everyone who approached them, and who are working so hard to advance the cause of animal welfare in so many different ways…kudos to eg League against Cruel Sports, Captive Animals Protection Society, BUAV (see below)

I wish I’d had time to take a few more photos, as I would have also liked to highlight the effervescent Kylie and Laura who co-founded the excellent TeenVGN, a social network and ‘safe place’ for veggie and vegan teens to discuss ideas, which is well worth supporting; the team at Animal Aid, who “campaign peacefully against all forms of animal abuse and promote a cruelty-free lifestyle”; and the great folk at The Vervet Monkey Foundation who had travelled to the UK from South Africa to talk about rehabilitating and providing sanctuary to over 500 primates, orphaned, injured, abused, ex-laboratory or unwanted pets.

Imagine what the world would be like if everyone thought the same way…if only!

Christina Bengston, League against Cruel Sports. I’ve met Christina at three separate events in the last few months, and she has always been the same: energetic, passionate about wildlife, and smiling. Support the League and end animal cruelty in the name of sport.

Captive Animals Protection Society Director Liz Tyson, an inspirational animal welfare activist. CAPS campaigns to ban animals in circuses, zoos and aquariums.

For over 100 years the BUAV has been campaigning peacefully to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals.

When I gave up meat I gave up greasy kebabs smothered in lemon juice, chilli sauce, and whatever bacteria survived the cooking process. Thanks to the fab staff at Wheaty they’re back on the menu, minus the grease and minus the bacteria found on cooked meat…and they are are delicious!

Nakd – food the way nature intended, keeping you happy and healthy in mind, body and spirit. And very, very tasty!

I can take her to a vegan festival with all sorts of new foods to try, but in the end it’s chips that Evie wants…

The War to Protect ‘our’ Wildlife – Make Your Stand

Tristan Reid — Sun, 26 May 2013 09:43:25 +0000

In the past week there have been even more revelations relating to the current governments intent on destroying ‘our’ wildlife. It is fast becoming clear we have a war on wildlife, if we stand back and do nothing there will be no wildlife left and we will be speeding up the destruction of this planet! I recently wrote about the results of the recent ‘State of Nature’ stock take, but I feel it needs repeating. Here is a summary taken from the RSPB website:

60% of the 3,148 UK species we assessed have declined over the last 50 years and 31% have declined strongly
Half of the species assessed have shown strong changes in their numbers or range, indicating that recent environmental changes are having a dramatic impact on nature in the UK. Species with specific habitat requirements seem to be faring worse than generalist species
Overall numbers have declined by 77% in the last 40 years, with little sign of recovery.
Of more than 6,000 species that have been assessed using modern Red List criteria, more than one in 10 are thought to be under threat of extinction in the UK
There is a lack of knowledge on the trends of most of the UK’s species. As a result, we can report quantitative trends for only 5% of the 59,000 or so terrestrial and freshwater species in the UK, and for very few of the 8,500 marine species. Much needs to be done to improve our knowledge.

You can read the summary here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/summary_tcm9-345844.pdf

You can read the full report here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/stateofnature_tcm9-345839.pdf

This is very serious, the Turtle Dove is an iconic UK species that is on the verge on extinction, this will be followed by many more if things do not change rapidly. The very people who should be looking after the ecology of the UK are failing big style! Within the last few months our government has pushed forward a trial cull of badgers despite scientific evidence solidly stating that Bovine TB will likely increase as a result of these actions. Let us not forget that the Badger is a protected species in the UK (Protection of Badgers Act 1992) and let us also not forget that there is a vaccine available! It is also true that the Badgers contracted bTB from cattle in the first place, so this is the species we should be protecting and not planning to slaughter! Today the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is reported in one of the broadsheets as saying that he will extend the cull nationwide (to at least 40 areas) and remove the protection status of the Badger. This will result in the slaughter of over 100,000 badgers across the UK. This is abhorrent, yet expected from the callous and heartless government. This is the same government who allows destruction of Buzzards and large scale slaughter of the amber listed Lesser Black-backed Gulls both to protect ‘shooting interests’!

European Badger © BadgerHero

This is the same government who voted against the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides (that have caused disastrous declines in bees), the same government that suggests that it is acceptable to develop on nature reserves, the same government that thinks laws to protect rare species are ‘ridiculous’ and a burden on business and the same government that has attempted to downgrade education about our relationship with the natural environment. Something is very wrong with the ethics of this government and they are going to destroy what is not theirs to destroy. They have no right to ride rough shot over the countryside, this wildlife is of vital importance to everyone who exists!

It is my opinion that the current government has a far too close relationship with the NFU and the Shooting industry. So close that it smacks of corruption and certainly makes the positions of Owen Paterson and Richard Benyon untenable!

It is very clear to me that we are facing a war to protect our wildlife. We have to stand up and shout very loud that the destruction of ‘our’ wildlife is unacceptable and we will not allow it to happen. If you are sitting around doing nothing, you are part of the problem. You must act if you want to save the diversity of wildlife that we have remaining in this country.

So, I urge you all to write to you MP an lodge your concerns (You can write to your MP via this useful website: http://www.writetothem.com/). We must keep he pressure up, if you a twitter user then please also tell @RichardBenyonMP and @Number10Gov that you will not allow them to destroy the wildlife of this country (please use the hash tag #answersplease to enable a searchable flow).

If you care about wildlife, if you have a heart, if you have a soul; then you must act now!

There is a war on to protect our countryside, MAKE YOUR STAND!

A sorry tale of Natural England and the shooting industry

Charlie — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:02:33 +0000

In 2012 news emerged that the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was offering hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money to research the best way to control buzzards. This ‘control’ might, the report stated, include destroying nests, ‘relocating’ birds and taking buzzards into captivity.

Buzzards, now once again a common sight in our skies after being pushed to the brink by persecution and ‘control’ are fully protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to kill, injure or take a Buzzard, or to take, damage or destroy an active nest or its contents. In Scotland, it is also an offence to intentionally or recklessly obstruct or prevent any wild bird from using its nest, and in Northern Ireland, it is illegal to disturb wild birds at an active nest.

So there must have been a very good reason for Defra and Richard Benyon (landowner, MP for Newbury and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra), to even suggest spending our money on buzzard ‘control’ (a euphemism for remove or destroy, if anyone was in any doubt), particularly when the country as a whole was facing cuts as the austerity programme bit down hard on anything considered wasteful.

You’d think. But actually the research projects had been requested by the shooting industry, because they were irritated that a native and protected bird of prey was coming after ‘their’ pheasants. Buzzards had discovered pens crammed with food (pheasant poults) sprouting up all over the countryside and naturally were hunting around them. Gamekeepers in particular complained to Defra, and – remarkably – Defra thought that they had a point. In fact a source was quoted in The Daily Telegraph saying that “The problem of buzzards preying on young pheasants needs to be looked at. It is an issue we are looking to resolve by maybe removing nests, putting buzzards in captivity or moving them to other places.”

Buzzard predation on pheasant poults as a proportion of the many millions of pheasants reared (in battery pens) and released annually is actually negligible. Data suggests just a few percent – far less than are hit by cars for example (and a tiny fraction killed by shooters of course). Besides which, the point here is that Buzzards are a protected species, and the shooting industry is a privately-run, commercial business. What business did a government department have in planning to overrule the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 so that a few pheasants would survive a little longer to be used as live target practice by shooters?

The outrage sparked by the news of these planned ‘research projects’ forced a hasty withdrawal, but, as many of us said at the time, this was just one victory for ‘our side’ in a much larger war on wildlife that was taking place in our countryside.

In July 2012 the League against Cruel Sports released ‘Gunsmoke and Mirrors’, a timely and shocking documentary about the shooting industry. Many years in the making ‘Gunsmoke and Mirrors’ detailed numerous abuses by what the League described as ‘an industry built on lies’. It looked at the battery-farming and importation of millions of pheasant poults (an issue highlighted by Animal Aid this week), at harassment of ordinary people trying to defend themselves from shoots taking place on their doorsteps, at the widespread use of snares, and at the persecution of native predators by gamekeepers. Abuses, we should always remember, taking place to increase profits for those who run shoots and to enable people to ‘enjoy’ a day out using pheasants and partridges as live targets (or, as the Shooting Times put it in an article shamelessly titled In praise of our pheasants, “Whatever you will be shooting this season — reared or wild, driven or walked-up — it will be the pheasant that is at the heart of all this enjoyment. What would we do without it?”

What would shooters do without pheasants? How about take up something that doesn’t involve cruelty or death – like birdwatching, wildlife photography or hiking perhaps?

Underlying any current debate about the shooting industry is the question of just how much power and influence it has. It’s widely-known that Richard Benyon shoots, that Owen Paterson MP, Benyon’s ‘boss’ as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and lead architect of the proposed and hugely unpopular badger cull wants to repeal the 2004 Hunting Act, and that the Prime-minister, David Cameron, is a ‘fields sports’ supporter. Remarkably the most vocal lobby for hunting and shooting, the Countryside Alliance, has a serving MP as its chair (Kate Hoey, MP for Vauxhall) and three Peers (Baroness Mallalieu, 3rd Baron Mancroft, and Baron Kimball) on its Board.

It would be libelous to suggest that any of these individuals are actively re-writing legislation on behalf of the shooting industry, but it is fair to say that the shooting industry clearly has friends in the highest places. (To balance that it is also true that the League against Cruel Sports has two serving MPs, Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, and Adrian Sanders, MP for Torbay, amongst it vice-presidents.)

Just how powerful the shooting industry really is was further revealed yesterday (23rd May) when an RSPB Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Natural England (“an Executive Non-departmental Public Body responsible to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [whose] purpose is to protect and improve England’s natural environment and encourage people to enjoy and get involved in their surroundings”) revealed that licences to control Buzzards had been granted to a “a small scale gamekeeper” to mitigate losses of pheasants.

Natural England claim that all avenues were looked at before the licences were granted – including recommendations to ‘protect’ the poults which were not carried out. It is presumably far easier to blame Buzzards for poor husbandry than to do the job properly. The one avenue apparently not considered was the one that would lead to informing a gamekeeper that Buzzards are protected and can not be disturbed. Only of course the gamekeeper was working for a shoot, and it seems that while some attitudes to animals have moved on since Victorian times (we no longer decorate hats with stuffed birds for example) the rules that apply to the rest of us don’t yet apply to the shooting industry. Were you or I to destroy or disturb a Buzzard nest we would be rightly open to prosecution – do it so that people can ‘enjoy’ killing pheasants then the law will apparently be tilted in your favour.

Natural England was mauled on social media and on the websites of conservation and welfare organisations, while shooting industry supporters proclaimed that they were blowing this one incident out of proportion (I have tweets to prove this). I’ve been involved in this issue for many years and I was certain – as were many others – that this was simply not the case, and – almost inevitably – it emerged yesterday evening that Natural England has been quietly doling out licences for a decade to cull tens of thousands of Lesser Black-backed Gulls (a species listed as of Amber conservation concern in the UK because of population declines) on one of England’s largest shooting estates: Abbeystead estate on the Bowland Fells in Lancashire.

The licences were granted – supposedly – because of water pollution concerns, but there is no doubt that gulls predate eggs (and have been doing so for millennia, just indeed as we have) and gamekeepers and shooting estates ferociously protect their profits. There is also no doubt whatsoever that other protected raptors like Hen Harriers are being exterminated on shooting estates. This is routinely denied by gamekeepers but evidence of shot birds and photos of eggs that have been stamped on are piling up, all that is lacking now is evidence of exactly who is issuing the instructions and which individuals are carrying them out.

Talking of other protected species of raptors, why are there no Goshawks in areas where shooting estates are sited, especially in the Peak District where they should be numerous? Why are Golden Eagles not spreading into suitable habitat in England as all the modelling suggests they should be?

The answers are clear to everyone but the lobbyists and apologists for the shooting industry…

So what will be next on Natural England and Defra’s hit list, because there can be no doubt whatsoever that these incidents are not isolated and will be taken advantage of by an industry seemingly enjoying support at government level? Clearly while the upcoming Badger cull is supposed (despite scientific advice to the contrary) to support the dairy industry, the shooting lobbyists have come piling in alleging that badgers are responsible for declines in hedgehog and songbird populations. Expect to see more examples of licences being issued to control them [Edited Sunday May 26th to add: Sunday Times quotes Owen Paterson as saying that he wants to normalise Badger culling]. Songbird Survival, a charity founded by pigeon racers and run by shooting interests, actively campaign against predators of all sorts especially Sparrowhawks and would like to see them removed from the countryside claiming they are impacting songbird populations (said claim is neatly demolished by Mark Avery). Following re-introduction programmes the Red Kite population in Scotland is thankfully swelling, but this has caused mutterings from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association who would like to see them ‘controlled’ (ie killed).

The ultimate threat to wildlife is of course calls, including from within government, to repeal the Hunting Act (Kate Hoey was strongly against the Hunting Act and consistently votes against any anti-hunting measure). Repeal of this iconic legislation would be seen as a green light to ‘field sports’ supporters everywhere for the resumption of slaughter in the name of ‘sport’. It must not be allowed.

The sad truth is that in 2013 wildlife – and I don’t like saying ‘our wildlife’ as it doesn’t belong to us – is increasingly viewed as either a resource to be exploited or an obstacle to be pushed out of the way. If it gets in the way of profit or ‘sport’ it can apparently be removed with a nod from government departments that many of us presumed were there to protect it (and are happy to attempt to fob us off: see the disingenuous Myth Busters: Full details of buzzard nest control licence).

My personal view is that there will never be a good reason to disturb, remove, control, or kill protected birds of prey (or gulls or any other species) simply because they are denting the profits of an industry that is cruel, wasteful, inhumane, and makes millions. It doesn’t matter, contrary to what Natural England state in an attempt to justify themselves, that removing a few Buzzard nests has no impact on national population levels. It impacts individual birds, and the fact is that no protected species should be harmed in any way whatsoever just so that a few shooters get to kill a few more pheasants – an introduced species which of course is nationally far, far more numerous than Buzzards will ever be.

And I think that the majority of people probably feel the same way…

Common Buzzard, Wiltshire, UK. October 2008. Photo Charlie Moores

Cruelty to animals at any time is upsetting and wrong. The League was started by a group of people who felt strongly that cruelty inflicted in the name of sport was particularly barbaric and upsetting.

If you feel that animals should not be used as targets or objects to be chased for someone’s entertainment then you are a supporter already.

The League has developed effective ways to thwart such sports, gaining public support and causing difficulty for the people inflicting cruelty.

Ultimately the League does not bandage animal’s paws. Instead we deal with the perpetrators of the cruelty by seeking effective ways to stop them for good.

No Splat No Bat

Charlie — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:01:44 +0000

I’ve just finished two evening of bat transect surveys near Swindon, covering farmland that unless something miraculous happens (eg the discovery of a very large colony of very rare orchids or very rare bumblebees, or a ‘buried just below the surface’ vast munitions dump) will soon be concreted over and turned into yet another block of one of the country’s fastest growing towns.

On a transect survey you basically walk along a pre-determined route stopping at pre-selected points for eg five minutes, and log whatever it is you’re looking for: in this case bats, using a Duet bat recorder which converts their ultrasonic clicks into audible sound. The idea is that by finding out what uses the site, when the developers come to build over yet more habitat they might leave the odd hedgerow used by commuting Pipistrelles, or the pool hunted over by whatever species is in the area. It’s called mitigation: take away most of the good stuff and leave the odd sliver because, you know, we all like wildlife and that’s the law anyway (unless George Osborne gets his way and removes these ‘barriers to development’)…

The surveys started 30 minutes before sunset, so it was still light. Both evenings were fairly cool, but should have been warm enough to bring out insects and the bats that feed on them. The habitat, mainly rough pasture with hawthorn hedge boundaries, small streams, and the occasional clump of mature sallow, looked pretty good – but the results were extremely telling, and perfectly reflect the conclusion of the State of Nature Report released (coincidentally) today: I saw virtually no bees or hoverflies, very few large moths (scanning by torchlight after dark), and recorded virtually no bats (a handful of Pipistrelles and one or two Noctules). I saw one or two Roe Deer, a few Rabbits, heard one or two Blackcaps and a Whitethroat, but to all intents and purposes this part of once rural Wiltshire is practically devoid of wildlife. It was if a clean-up crew had gone in prior to the survey and removed anything that might have slowed down the construction companies queued up and ready to pour their concrete.

It reminded me that a while ago conservation organisations began talking about the ‘splat test’ – an informal way for drivers of noting how many insects are about in the evening by looking at how many get splattered against windscreens and licence plates. The common question that results is this: when did you last need to clean your windscreen of splattered insects? Five years ago? Ten years? Fifteen or twenty? I can’t remember personally, but it was a LONG time ago…

Does it matter whether we’re NOT wiping out insects with our cars? Hell, yes. Our roads cut right through the heart of our farmland and woodlands. They’re actually usually quite good routes for insects too. High hedges keep any wind down, the hedges themselves provide sites for insects to feed and breed, and while the very best sites may be well away from traffic-heavy areas insects used to be so abundant and ubiquitous that it was impossible to go anywhere without driving through clouds of them.

That simply doesn’t happen now. Powerful insecticides are routinely used on farmland and in our gardens, councils mow down roadside vegetation when insects most need it, our climate is changing (if cool, wet springs become the norm our insect life and the wildlife that feeds on them are all but done for), and the current government seem hell-bent on pursuing a ‘development is all’ policy with almost complete disregard for wildlife habitats.

So back to the transect survey. I appreciate that it’s not scientifically valid to claim that from two evenings of surveying any accurate conclusions can be drawn about what the state of wildlife really is on the south-west side of Swindon. Perhaps it’s just unusually cold this week, I wasn’t looking hard enough, or I was looking for the wrong things, but I know – I absolutely know – that if there are no insects on the wing there will be no bats either, if there are no moth larvae to be found birds will struggle to feed their young, and if there are no pollinators there will be far fewer fruits or arable crops.

It may well be (if I’m being extremely generous) that the developers who will flatten what is left of these fields and streams will improve parts of the area by cleaning up the streams, create gardens that householders will fill with plants, and enclose the best sites as ‘nature reserves’ to be managed by local conservationists – but going by what exist just a mile down the road I doubt it, or that would anyway meaningfully restore biodiversity or give our wildlife any sort of respite at all. Yet another area of biologically-devastated farmland will be turned in to biologically-denuded housing estates, yet another tranche of our precious wildlife will be lost to our own crazy and unrestrained growth and ‘need’ to acquire more and more land. Yet another area of British countryside will be turned into yet another suburb of people, roads, vehicles, houses, noise, artificial lighting, and newly-planted non-natives shrubs and trees.

But at least none of these new residents will ever have to clean their windscreens of dead insects…

Bat Conservation Trust: http://www.bats.org.uk/
Butterfly Conservation: http://butterfly-conservation.org/
The Wildlife Trusts: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/