There are no signs of the public’s outrage subsiding over #Buzzardgate. You only have to type in the words ‘buzzard’ and ‘DEFRA’ into a search engine and the strength of feeling against DEFRA’s outlandish plan is almost palpable.
The best article we’ve read, so far, is that written by George Monbiot in the Guardian (here). There’s also a good article by Michael McCarthy in the Independent today, entitled ‘Richard Benyon: The bird-brained minister (see here). Although McCarthy seems to think that the buzzard-nest destroyers will start their shotgun antics as of this Friday (1st June), presumably because that was the proposed start date in DEFRA’s research tender document (see here). However, the buzzard breeding season is well underway and many nests now contain small chicks and the DEFRA ‘study’ suggests that nests will be destroyed during ‘construction’; it doesn’t say anything about destroying active nests containing breeding adults, eggs and/or young (not that that would stop the trigger-happy nest destroyers, of course).
But perhaps the destructive parts of this study won’t start this Friday (if they ever start at all, depending on how loudly we all shout our objections). According to the June edition of ‘Modern Gamekeeping’ (which could just as easily have been called ‘Victorian Gamekeeping’ because nothing seems to have changed except for new bits of kit designed to help the ‘keeper kill more wildlife), the trial’s start date is not that clear:
“Though DEFRA insists it is too early to comment on the finer details of the study, it is expected to launch some time this year. A spokesperson said: “The tender for the research project on management techniques to reduce the predation of pheasant poults by buzzards closed yesterday. We will announce the successful bid later in the summer“”.
Modern Gamekeeping isn’t available online (another example of its misnomer) but a photograph of its buzzard trial cover story can be found on Alan Tilmouth’s blog (here). Incidentally, Alan Tilmouth has been one of the most prolific tweeters on this issue and we know he was directly responsible for directing some ‘important’ people to this blog when we led on this story last week, so many thanks Alan, and good luck with your DEFRA FoI request to find out which Northumberland estates are involved; we’re all VERY interested in those results.
Another DEFRA FoI request has been lodged by ‘SWBirdWatch’ which can be followed on the public website ‘What Do They Know?’ (see here).
Since the buzzard trial story hit the news last week, several commentators on various blogs and websites have mentioned that the game-shooting lobby may have shot themselves in the foot over their latest attempt to get rid of raptors, because now the full glare of the spotlight has been turned onto their industry, with mainstream media taking a real interest. Mark Avery’s blog this morning (see here) focuses on some of the questions now being asked by a wider audience where previously they were just being asked by a smaller minority of special-interest groups. All good stuff.
For those who haven’t already done so, there are two main petitions to sign to show your disapproval of the buzzard trial – please, take a minute to sign both of them and let Mr Benyon feel the full force of our discontent:
In other news, Tom McKellar is due to be sentenced today (he’s the gamekeeper from Glen Orchy who was convicted in April of possessing the banned pesticide Carbofuran, although he didn’t face any charges over the dead golden eagle found at Glen Orchy which had been poisoned by er… Carbofuran – see here). We’ve received some further information about that poisoned eagle and we’ll discuss it once McKellar’s case has ended.
Another hearing opening today concerns the head keeper at Edradynate Estate in Perthshire. More on that case in due course…
Raptor Persecution UK 
Disgraceful !!! There are strict laws protecting birds of prey – but I suppose these laws don’t apply to everyone, do they?