Blogs

This year for the first time there will be a number of English game fairs rather than one, so there has been a certain anticipation surrounding the first – the Field & Country Fair held at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire on 10-12 June. I’m delighted that in terms of new member recruitment and profile raising for the GWCT, the show was a great success.

Auchnerran is a hive of activity right now. For a start, we have more people working here than we’ve had before as we pull together more information about our wader and rabbit populations. And by all accounts the sheep flock, under Allan’s shepherding skills, is doing well.

Lizzie Grayshon reports from the Avon Valley, where we are now seeing our first broods of lapwing chicks fledging.

Last month we welcomed Sarah Chare, Deputy Director of Fisheries, Biodiversity and Geomorphology at the Environment Agency, to the Salmon & Trout Research Centre in Dorset. 

Peter sets his moth trap and gets inundated with diamond-back moths.

Some moorland managers are reporting a significant fall in vole numbers. In some cases, they are suggesting a complete absence of voles – what is going on?

Find out more about PACDOG, a company who design, manufacture and supply equipment which addresses the problems of conventional dog training.

One of the key aims of the Rotherfield Demonstration Project is the recovery of the red-listed grey partridge in an area where they formerly have gone extinct. The habitat creation and improvements together with the legal predation control needed to re-establish this iconic farmland flagship species does, of course, also benefit a wide range of other wildlife.

Debate around trophy hunting has continued for some time, but earlier this year a group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called for a complete ban on the import of trophies into the EU. In response, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published a briefing paper, which aims to inform discussions on the ban and other related topics.

Peter Thompson despairs of the quick headline-grabbing fixes and suggests that by working together we can create a practical, long-term vision of what can be achieved