Search Results for: pesticides

Buglife | B Lines

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Insect decline is inextricably linked with pesticides and habitat loss. The latter also leads to habitat fragmentation, pockets that are no longer linked and which have less species diversity. The charity Buglife has proposed setting up a nationwide system of insect ‘corridors’ they are calling ‘B Lines’. As they put it “We need to restore our countryside. We need to increase the number of wildflower-rich places, and we need to make sure that these areas are large enough to provide everything that pollinators need to thrive. We also need to join the dots. And that is where B-Lines comes in.”

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North Yorkshire ‘black hole for raptors’ says Yorkshire Post

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This is not what we’re used to seeing outside of the RSPB’s Bird Crime reports or the Raptor Persecution UK blog, but the Yorkshire Post (a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds and covering the whole of what used to be Yorkshire as well as parts of north Derbyshire and Lincolnshire) has just printed a list of SIXTEEN raptor persecution incidents from January 2018 to July 2020 under the heading ‘North Yorkshire – a black hole for raptors’.

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Peregrine falcon eggs taken from three sites in Peak District

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As was widely reported wildlife crime has rocketed during the country’s lockdown and many ongoing investigations are focussed on land managed for grouse shooting. Much of the crime spree has been credited to gamekeepers taking advantage while the public remained indoors. But it appears that egg thieves have been out and about too (though of course – and this is purely idle speculation, m’lud – the two groups could be one and the same: some gamekeepers have been getting rid of Peregrines for decades so why not flog the eggs to falconers rather than just stamping on them?)

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European Eels – slipping towards extinction?

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How did a fish that was once so abundant and so familiar become listed in 2008 by the IUCN as Critically Endangered (the highest threat level), leading to headlines in the media this week which included “Man found guilty of smuggling £50m worth of live eels out of UK”? Unfortunately, writes Charlie Moores, it’s down to a combination of human-related causes that have impacted so much of the world’s wildlife: widespread habitat change, agricultural and industrial pollution, and exploitation and wildlife crime.

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Podcast: Peter Cranswick | Telling the story of the world’s rarest duck

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The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s Peter Cranswick is a highly experienced waterfowl conservationist who has worked on a range of threatened species from Red-breasted and Lesser White-fronted Geese to the world’s rarest duck – the Madagascar Pochard. Charlie Moores went to talk with Peter about his work on the ground in northern Madagascar and how the project changed from what he once described as “a hastily implemented rescue mission focused solely on a duck..into a genuinely holistic programme for wildlife and people”.

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The Rubber Dodo Award 2019

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The North American-based Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – which works to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction, through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive – is launching its annual search for “the most outrageous eco-villain of 2019”. As you might expect, writes Charlie Moores. Trump-appointees and relatives feature, but who – or what – might we nominate here in the UK?

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