Friday 2 December 2022

Wild Justice - gamebirds and avian flu

Wild Justice - gamebirds and avian flu


Good morning! News today: more progress on our Woodcock petition, we're nominated for an award, joint work with other organisations and we write to Defra about gamebirds and avian flu.

 

Woodcock petition: our petition has added over 6,000 signatures since Monday's newsletter, and now stands at over 78,000 signatures - thank you! We're going to give it a short rest in terms of our promoting it (other things to do!) but we'll be coming back to it soon.

 

Please do take opportunities to ask friends and family to sign up - and thank you for all you've done so far. You've been wonderful.

 

Thank you too to all the bird clubs, natural history societies and RSPB groups who have publicised the petition at their meetings or through their newsletters. We've seen what some of you have done, but we're sure there is much we've missed. Thank you all - and we can't get too many signatures so please give it another push before the petition closes on 25 January.

 

To inspire, educate and amaze you, have a look at this chat between Chris Packham, Conservative peer and birder John Randall and Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, Olivia Blake, as they talk about Woodcock but lots more too - click here.

 

Here is the link to the petition - click here.

 

 

Birdwatch magazine Birders' Choice Awards: we've been nominated twice in the annual Birdwatch Magazine Birders' Choice Awards. First as Conservation Hero of the year and for the Campaign of the Year for our Woodcock petition and the work around it. You can also vote for the Guano Award for environmental harm - Chris Loder MP, 'Dorset is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced', must be a strong contender.  You can vote in all or some of the categories, and you certainly don't have to be a birder - click here.

 

Working with others: Wild Justice is an active member of Wildlife and Countryside Link and we work with a range of other environmental organisations, most of them much bigger than us, on a range of actions and initiatives. For example, we were signatories of this joint NGO complaint to the Office for Environmental Protection (click here) and we contributed to and endorsed this joint report on wildlife crime (click here).

 

Gamebirds and avian flu: Defra decided not to introduce any restrictions on the release of large numbers of gamebirds into the countryside at a time of unprecedented threat of avian flu to commercial flocks and wild birds. Now they face a difficult decision about whether or not to allow shooting estates to take 'wild' gamebirds back into captivity to form part of next year's breeding stock. We guess that Defra won't introduce any regulation on shooters at all. We have written to Defra asking them what they are going to do - click here.

 

 

 

If you like what we do and would like to make a general donation which will be used across our range of work, then please consider donating through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post - see details here.

 

That's it for now. Thank you so much for your support on campaigns and in funding legal challenges. We couldn't do any of this without you.

Gamebirds and avian flu: Defra decided not to introduce any restrictions on the release of large numbers of gamebirds into the countryside at a time of unprecedented threat of avian flu to commercial flocks and wild birds. Now they face a difficult decision about whether or not to allow shooting estates to take 'wild' gamebirds back into captivity to form part of next year's breeding stock. We guess that Defra won't introduce any regulation on shooters at all. We have written to Defra asking them what they are going to do - click here.

 

 

 

If you like what we do and would like to make a general donation which will be used across our range of work, then please consider donating through PayPal, bank transfer or a cheque in the post - see details here.

 

That's it for now. Thank you so much for your support on campaigns and in funding legal challenges. We couldn't do any of this without you. 

 

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