GWCT News Blog

We respond to a recent piece in the Yorkshire Post  describing the efforts being made to save water voles in the North York Moors National Park.

For a fruit and vegetable gardener like me, grey squirrels are not welcome, and I do not much care for them pinching my bird nuts either. Fortunately, grey squirrels are pretty easy to trap, at this time of year, when natural food is scarce.

We respond to a recent piece in The Guardian, in which the RSPB claim to have been flooded with reports of wildlife crime since the lockdown began.

Following government advice issued this week, coronavirus restrictions for England have been eased somewhat from 13 May.

Curlew Country, which launches its webcam programme once again this week, has done an amazing job in getting boots on the ground – practical, hands-on working with farmers and land managers – to recover these much-loved birds that have almost disappeared from our countryside.

Countryside Correspondent Harry Shukman failed to mention that the scientific paper he was referring to actually found that any pressure to illegally kill predators was both rare and resisted by gamekeepers.

The students of GWCT 2019/20 have stepped up across the organisation to ensure business can run as smoothly as possible. Now dotted around the country, we are still working hard as ever to keep projects running, and some have even stayed onsite to ensure vital work can continue.

Across the country, whatever our circumstances, we all have a lot on our minds at the moment – health, employment and income, and very high levels of uncertainty in many areas. However, the GWCT must continue its fight for an evidence-based approach to conservation.

Everyone is worried about curlew in Wales – our breeding population has seen a 62 percent decline over the past 25 years.