The UK’s managed shoot industry, which sees millions of pheasants raised and shot every year, has received support from an unexpected quarter. In a blog published on the website of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, its conservation director Martin Harper has praised the role of managed shoots in protecting wildlife. “The contribution […]
Tag: conservation
Dutch Knights defending their title at the 2015 Champions of the Flyway
STOP THE ILLEGAL KILLING OF MIGRATING BIRDS AND DONATE HERE! Last year editor Gert Ottens from Birdlife Netherlands, AGAMI photographers Marc Guyt and Martijn Verdoes together with Ken Billington, founder of Focusing on Wildlife, joined the Champions of the Flyway in Eilat, Israel. Aptly named Champions of the Flyway Sprinters we joined this extraordinary bird race […]
Poll: Should the Nicaraguan interoceanic canal go ahead?
A Chinese company has launched work on a $50bn canal across Nicaragua, an ambitious rival to the Panama canal that sceptics dismiss as a pipe dream and environmentalists say will wreck the country’s ecosystem. The Chinese telecoms magnate behind the canal, Wang Jing, inaugurated the project at a ceremony in the southern town of Rivas […]
Champions of the Flyway, a bird race with a difference!
Champions of the Flyway is an extraordinary bird race for conservation that takes place annually, in the unparalleled and legendary migration hotspot – Eilat, Israel 24-hour ‘bird races’, ‘big days’ and ‘bird-a-thons’ are now well known throughout the world. These events always draw the interest of local birders and the excitement they generate attracts considerable attention from a […]
Helping orangutans survive: new project aims to connect habitat fragments in Kalimantan (Part II)
Two decades ago, a project to convert one million hectares of forest to rice paddies was undertaken by the Indonesian government in southern Kalimantan. As predicted by experts, this Mega Rice Project (MRP) was a massive failure and was eventually abandoned, but not before it destroyed critical orangutan habitat. Now a new project is trying […]
David Attenborough backs £1m project to save Bengal tiger
A £1m project to save tigers and stop them eating people is to be launched on Wednesday with the backing of Sir David Attenborough. An entire village in India will be relocated as part of the scheme, which conservationists forecast will create the most densely packed population of tigers in the world. Seven people have […]
Can Mull be a NNR whilst culling pine martens?
Hot topics Currently there are a few stories hitting the news across Mull; the possibility of Mull becoming a national nature reserve and the issue of the pine marten (Martes martes) breeding on the isle. It is safe to say I have some strong opinions on both of these hot topics. Here on the isle […]
The Crash of the Rhinos
A group of rhino is called a “Crash”. But this title is about more than that. Rhino numbers are crashing. And crashing terribly fast. Rhino poaching is on a seemingly unstoppable rise on the back of increased demand for their horns in the East (China, Vietnam, etc), where it’s (falsely) believed to have medicinal and […]