This story has nothing to do with raptor persecution – it’s about a solicitor – Yvonne Hossack - is accused of bringing her profession into disrepute, and will face a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal next month. You can read the full details on the Daily Telegraph web site.
Continue reading A thorn in the side of the establishment …

“Police, camera, no appropriate licence to be at raptor nest” might be a better title for the puff piece we’ve just received from colleagues down South – Chris Visser of the Lancashire Evening Post interviewing Duncan Thomas, Police Wildlife Liaison Officer and saviour of our planet – or at least the Lancashire bit of it, if the article is to be believed. http://www.lep.co.uk/news/Police-protection-of-wildlife.5532271.jp
Hello, Natural England – that photograph accompanying the article: breach of police licence conditions or what? Necessary visit? Is there a crime going on there (apart from the obvious)? Bona fide raptor workers would be severely taken to task for showboating like that, and rightly so too.
Continue reading When we practice to deceive …

Updated 7 August 2009 – see footnote*
On Friday 7th August, representatives of Lancashire Police Force will be meeting the conservation worker – wrongly cautioned under s59 of the Police Reform Act 2002 – at his solicitor’s office.
Will they, I wonder, have the integrity to own up that the charge was nothing more than an attempt to intimidate and harass somebody who was only trying to see that the law is upheld with regards to protecting our wildlife? Or will they ‘close ranks’ as is so often the case?
Continue reading Let’s persecute the conservationists – Part 3

I remember some years ago an incident in which somebody I knew made allegations of improper behaviour against a police officer. Athough this person was a ‘thoroughly bad lot’, the police dealt with the complaint promptly and in a professionally manner. The officer was cleared of all allegations - and rightly so – but procedures were rigorously followed.
Continue reading Let’s persecute the conservationists – Part 2

During the last few decades direct human persecution of birds of prey throughout England’s moorland uplands have taken a different and sinister tack. No longer do we find nests containing smashed eggs or dead chicks with their heads decapitated. No, the strategies being used today to reduce brood sizes have now become much more subtle and shrewd. To the ordinary bystander nothing would seem odd when nests containing eggs are found abandoned or broods of several healthy young are regularly reduced to just a single fledgling. Even the experts sometimes misinterpret the clues and get it wrong; never the less the methods of breeding disruption being used today are no less effective.
Continue reading Site 6 update – Private Estates

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