Author Mike Russell
While my typing finger has been recovering from the last blog, Richard has just posted me the following tweet from Defra.
We’ve listened to public concerns, so we are stopping current research and developing new research proposals on #buzzards.
— Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) May 30, 2012
So, people power, and an incredible dose of common sense has won the day, or at least a reprieve. We will have to keep a watch on what these developing anew research proposals are, but for the time being at least, the UK’s buzzards are free from the prospect of being translocated to a Falconry Centre!
Well done and thanks to everyone who took digit to keyboard and vented your anger to your MPs and Defra too, and generally making it known in your hundreds what an ill-conceived idea this was.
buzzard / Amy Lewis
Good news, Mike and as you say- a victory for common sense! It’s been one of the great joys of recent years watching the numbers of buzzards over and around the Downs increase. There were virtually none when I was a kid! Well done and thanks for raising awareness. I wrote to my MP, Norman Baker, about this and it’s great to see plenty of public pressure has paid off.
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This stops legal persecution of the buzzard for a while,we just need to concentrate on the illegal activities of some gamekeepers.
My e-mail to the MP, outlined that Buzzards also prey on rats & squirrels, and may actually be doing a good service to the Pheasant rearing industry. People not involved with wildlife conservation only seem to look at their own perspective, and not the wider issue. Faith is restored for the moment.
Kind Regards Tony
Great news. There is a pair of buzzards that regular fly over my home in Portslade old village. They are a delight to watch. One has several tail feathers missing.
While sometimes they are relatively low, on many occasions they are much higher in the sky – distinctive shapes and I notice them because they often get the local herring gull community all rialed up. Often its when the buzzards are flying over head.
On one occasion a few years back one landed in the trees at Easthill park Portslade.
To those bigots who think that the Buzzards are killing the Pheasant should take a drive through Sussex & Surrey country lanes and count how many road kill Pheasant they come across.