2022

As our recent blogs have suggested there is a role for rewilding within our landscape – in some areas this could include a withdrawal from commercial farming activities – and, given we are largely a society of private landownership, we respect everyone’s right to manage their land as they wish.

Recently a new study was published in Vet Record about badger culling and its relationship with the incidence of bovine tuberculosis (bTB). It was very quickly covered by the news and declared a “landmark study”, with the authors concluding that there is no detectable link between badger culling and any decline in incidence of bTB. However, Defra promptly issued a rebuttal and discounted the study as “methodologically flawed”.

The earth we live on is an intricately engineered, delicately balanced life-support system. Be it a worm, a tree, a mole, or a bee; a cloud, a teaspoon of soil, or the sea – almost anything in the environment that you can name (even the common wasp) is part of our life-support machine.

On Sunday 12^th June, the South Avon and Stour Agricultural Society held their Open Farm Sunday event at Bisterne Estate near Ringwood.

Owl pellets are made up of the undigestible parts of their prey, which are usually swallowed whole, and regurgitated six or more hours later as a pellet. Therefore, by dissecting them, this allows you to discover precisely what the owl has been feeding on.

When you twin evidence-based research with the skills and passion of an individual or group of people on the ground, the results can be staggering. Through our Working Conservationist initiative, we have seen first-hand what that combination can achieve. 

The UK supports five species of owl and last week, as I heard the distinctive ‘hooo, hu, huhuhuhooo’ of a male tawny owl (Stix aluco) on the site of the GWCT’s headquarters, I wanted to learn more.

The recent People’s Trust for Endangered Species/British Hedgehog Preservation Society report on the State of the British Hedgehogs 2022 makes mixed reading. 

With the shooting season now over, the first signs of breeding are already upon us. So, those who hope for a significant contribution from wild bred game should be making a start on the spring predation control programme.