Medicated grit: intensive grouse shooting is underpinned by the provision of medication in the form of a coating on pieces of grit which Red Grouse consume on moorland areas to help grind up the heather they eat. The medication kills off gut parasites, helminth worms, that in the past caused big cycles in Red Grouse numbers. The aim has been for Red Grouse numbers to remain high enough for shooting in most years.
Wild Justice collaborated with the League Against Cruel Sports (Scotland) to develop a laboratory test for the chemical, Flubendazole, which is used to coat the grit. LACS collected grit samples from a few Scottish grouse moors and the test we helped to develop was used to analyse the samples. We have briefed Scottish Ministers on the results and you can read the briefing and see the actual results in our blog - click here.
Books for Schools: in September and October we asked you to nominate schools to receive free natural history books and we have now sent two copies of six books to 97 schools - 1164 books in all. These have been distributed across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and one school on the Isle of Man. For details of the spread of locations, and the books - click here.
Top up for Forensic Analysis Fund: Wild Justice started this initiative back in 2020 and the fund has already helped lead to the convictions of four criminals, all gamekeepers. We have topped up the fund with a further £5000.
Dr Lucy Webster, Chair of the PAW Forensic Working Group said: “The additional funding provided to the Forensic Analysis Fund has demonstrated the benefit of supporting early-stage investigations where no crime has yet been proven. Veterinary examinations at this stage allow crimes against birds of prey to be quickly identified, giving an investigation the best chance of progressing to a prosecution.".
For more details - see our blog - click here.
A short-lived legal challenge: a couple of weeks ago we sent a Pre-action Protocol letter to Defra over their guidance that “Competent authorities (including local planning authorities) considering planning proposals for development draining via a sewer to a wastewater treatment works subject to the upgrade duty are required to consider that the Page 2 nutrient pollution standard will be met by the upgrade date for the purposes of Habitats Regulations Assessments.”. In other words, planning authorities have to assume that something will definitely happen in the future that past experience suggests will not necessarily happen. This was an approach that stirred up a great furore in the House of Lords last year and seemed to have been put to bed but we missed the fact, and so it seems did almost everyone else, that the government had found another way to get what it wanted. Therefore, our legal challenge stands no chance of succeeding (although if we were still members of the EU then it might well be worth pursuing) so we got this wrong. You can't win 'em all! For more details see our blog - click here.
Our legal challenge of licensing gamebird releases: we still can't say much about this but it is taking up quite a lot of our time. When we can tell you more, then we will. For new subscribers here are three blogs from last year that set out our concerns - click here, click here and click here
Amazing donations and a legacy: our work depends completely on donations - that's our sole source of income. If you like what we do then you fund it, if you don't, then we won't be able to continue. We are very grateful to every single donor regardless of the amount. But sometimes the size of a donation takes the breath away. In the last three weeks we have received a £5,000 repeat donation from someone we know supports our approach. We have also received the final instalment of a legacy amounting to a total of £36,597 from a gentleman who we didn't know at all. He must have written us into his will fairly soon after we came into existence and we were beneficiaries of an equal share of 60% with five other good causes. Amazing! Cheques often (every other day?) arrive at our registered office with cards wishing us well or very nice letters. One such letter arrived in late January and after reading it and smiling, we turned over the cheque to see the amount and were gobsmacked to see the sum of £10,000. We 'phoned the donor straight away to thank him.
Such large donations are very unusual for us, and of course they are very, very, welcome, but they form a small part of our overall income. Wild Justice is proud of the breadth of our donor base and we thank you all for making our work possible.
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