Tomb of the Eagles News!.....Knap of Howar News….From ‘Wild Justice’…..
by Bernie Bell - 07:57 on 06 June 2025
Tomb of the Eagles News!.....
VERY GOOD NEWS about the Tomb of the Eagles….
https://theorkneynews.scot/2025/06/03/delight-as-the-tomb-of-eagles-will-reopen/
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Knap of Howar News….
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/knap-howar-paper/
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From ‘Wild Justice’…..
“In today’s newsletter; our Badger challenge crowd-funder, next steps with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the League Against Cruel Sports interviews Bob, some Woodcock news, and a petition.
Our legal challenge against the Badger cull:
Last week we asked if you would support our Badger crowd-funder as we’d recently heard that our legal challenge against the granting of Badger cull licences had been given permission to proceed to a full judicial review (click here to read about it).
We have been completely bowled over with the response to the crowdfunder and how quickly we achieved our fundraising target. This is brilliant and means we can now cover our legal costs, and those of The Badger Trust, our co-challengers in this case. Thank you so much for your generosity. We’re very grateful, not just for the donations but also for the groundswell of support for this work.
The next step will be a costs hearing later this month (click here for a useful reminder of the issue). We expect the actual Judicial Review to happen later this year.
STOP PRESS: On 2 June 2025 Natural England’s lawyers advised us that Natural England has just authorised nine supplementary Badger cull licences. Our legal team has requested further details, including the rationale for issuing these licences, and we’ll be scrutinising this information as soon as we receive it.
Bob Elliot podcast interview with the League Against Cruel Sports:
Our CEO Bob was interviewed recently by the League Against Cruel Sports talking about our ban driven grouse shooting campaign and the ‘circle of destruction’ on our moorlands, and how together we can best protect wildlife and restore our uplands. Have a listen here.
More on our ban driven grouse shooting campaign - and the forthcoming Westminster debate, and how you can help - coming very soon.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill legal challenge:
The Government has now responded to our pre-action protocol (PAP) letter in which we called on Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor to correct a statement she made in Parliament that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would not reduce the current level of environmental protection provided by existing laws.
We’ve consulted with our legal team and you can expect to hear more news from us on this shortly.
Limiting the shooting season for Woodcock:
You may have been wondering where this issue had gone to - so had we!
Since 2022, Wild Justice has been pressing Defra to limit the shooting season for Woodcock considering the change in its UK conservation status since 1981 and we also asked them to review the continued inclusion of other species on Schedule 2, including Scaup, Goldeneye, Pochard and Snipe.
While migratory populations of Woodcock appear to remain stable at a European scale, studies show a severe decline in the population size and breeding range of resident Woodcock breeding here in the UK since 1970.
Whilst we would prefer not to have any Woodcock shot at all, we maintain that the close season should be extended from 1st February – 30th September as it currently stands in England, to 1st February – 30th November, as a good first step to better to protect the declining resident Woodcock population. Any Woodcock shooting in September (in Scotland), October and much of November will primarily be directed at the declining British and Irish breeding population.
Here’s a useful timeline of our previous work on this topic, including our successful petition and the Westminster debate held in February 2023: https://wildjustice.org.uk/woodcock/woodcock-petition-timeline/
After two years of silence from Defra, Mary Creagh, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at Defra has recently written to us to confirm that the review has finally been completed and Defra has concluded that it should, “…provide greater protection for some of the species and recommended legislative changes accordingly”. This includes extending the close season for Woodcock. This is excellent news! Defra intends to run a public consultation in due course and we look forward to seeing progress on this.
Petition to stop the shooting of hares during their peak breeding season:
Another petition you might like to support is this one, calling on the Government to stop the shooting of hares during their peak breeding season, by establishing a legally enforceable close season for hares in England and Wales, from 1st February to 30th September. The petition can be found here:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/724795
That’s it for now, but we expect to be back in touch shortly about our legal challenge against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
Thank you,
Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay)."
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