Title is not the same as the original Guardian article. The original title was: ‘It’s soul destroying to find nests have failed’: inside the battle against Scotland’s falcon thieves

My TL;DR:

High-status racing falcons can sell for up to £250,000 in the Middle East, according to the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). The UK exports more live raptors than any other country, and the United Arab Emirates is the largest importer.

Legally, captive-bred peregrine falcons can be traded, but the birds cannot be taken from the wild. They are strictly protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act.

For racers, however, wild birds are more desirable: considered stronger, fiercer and faster. UK birds, particularly Scottish specimens, are prized in the Middle East.

Between 2007 and 2022 there was a 4,500% increase in export permits for UK peregrines, according to Police Scotland, and it is not known how many were illegally caught.

Despite being one of the highest value areas of crime globally, it is falling down the list of policing priorities, according to research led by Nottingham Trent University. In the UK, campaigners say there has been a weakening of legislation which means this illegal trade is easier to get away with.

People used to have to register a peregrine in the same way they would register a vehicle, says Tom Grose, investigations officer at the RSPB, but that changed in 2008, when the government weakened the Wildlife and Countryside Act’s registration controls. “Now, if you want to sell a peregrine falcon you need to fill out a certificate but you don’t need to send it out anywhere – you just need to fill out this piece of paper.”

With their bright, orange feet and colourful beaks full of glistening fish, puffins are really charismatic seabirds. But puffin populations are in decline, largely due to their struggle to catch enough of these shiny fish: sandeels.

Sandeels have been industrially fished on an industrial scale since the 1950s, not for human consumption but to make fishmeal. They are the bedrock of marine ecosystems in the North Sea. But a new fishing ban could provide welcome respite for puffins and other marine wildlife.

The UK and Scottish governments have announced a permanent end to industrial sandeel fishing in English and Scottish waters. This ban will begin on April 1 – the start of this year’s sandeel fishing season.

The UK has lost more than three-quarters of its great skuas on surveyed sites since bird flu struck, according to the first report quantifying the impact of H5N1 on seabird populations.

The deaths have happened over two years, since the outbreak of H5N1 in 2021. The UK is internationally important for seabirds, home to most of the world’s 16,000 pairs of nesting great skuas.

Jean Duggan, a policy assistant on avian influenza for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), said: “To have that level of loss in a population we have international responsibility for is quite catastrophic.

Not exclusively UK related, but research carried out in the UK and with a good deal of UK interest, I think:

Modern populations of fallow deer possess hidden cultural histories dating back to the Roman Empire, which should be factored into decisions around their management and conservation.

New research, bringing together DNA analysis with archaeological insights, has revealed how fallow deer have been repeatedly moved to new territories by humans, often as a symbol of colonial power or because of ancient cultures and religions.

The results show that the animal was first introduced into Britain by the Romans and not the Normans, as previously believed. The findings also reveal how British colonial links during the 17th–19th centuries played a key role in spreading the deer around the world, including the Caribbean island of Barbuda, where fallow deer are the national animal.

A bright clear day today and I spotted the first butterfly that I have seen this year - a slightly faded Red Admiral taking advantage of a sun trap among some heathland gorse.

A grey seal colony has established itself at a former Cold War weapons testing site on the Suffolk coast.

More than 130 grey seal pups have been born at Orford Ness, a remote shingle spit, this breeding season.

Rangers said the blubbery mammals have used the ex-military site as a breeding ground every year since 2021, following a reduction in visitor access because of the pandemic.

It is thought they spilled over from well-populated colonies in Norfolk.

Become a bee spotter for the Royal Horticultural Society by recording bumblebees on flowers in UK parks and gardens this spring (project open 12 Feb 2024 to 31 May 2024).

Flowers in spring are important but which flowers do bumblebees use? To help find the answer, the RHS are inviting gardeners across the UK to become community scientists and help spot bumblebees on flowers this spring.

England is launching a biodiversity credit scheme this week that attempts to force all new road and housebuilding projects to benefit nature, rather than damage it.

The “nature market”, called biodiversity net gain (BNG), means all new building projects must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity or habitat. If a woodland is destroyed by a road, for example, another needs to be recreated. This can happen either on site or elsewhere.

The requirement becomes law under the Town and Country Planning Act on 12 February for larger sites, and on 2 April 2024 for smaller sites.

DOZENS of Scotland’s marine and coastal species are critically endangered or in rapid decline due to industrial fishing, climate change, pollution and other pressures, The Ferret has found.

The species most at risk include fish, birds and mammals such as cod, salmon, trout, harbour seal, gulls, shag and guillemot.

Declining fish numbers in Scottish waters – caused by overfishing and climate change – are impacting birds, dolphins, whales and other animals that rely on fish as a key food source, while pollution, energy infrastructure and fishing gear also threaten marine life.

“The number was unbelievable,” said James Richardson, of the first times he heard there were hundreds of thousands of raw sewage spills a year in England and Wales.

He was astounded to find the figures were true. “I thought crikey, this is crazy,” said the IT worker, who was spurred to build Top of the Poops, a data-packed website adorned with a poop emoji.

Elevated by a network of outraged citizens such as Richardson, and boosted by the launch of The Times’s Clean it Up campaign one year ago, tackling water pollution is expected to be a big environmental issue when election campaigning ramps up.

Original link

Tens of thousands of Christmas trees are buried on a beach near Blackpool.

Some stick out of the sand in plain sight, others are buried underneath metres of sand dunes - exactly where they're supposed to be.

Every February for two days, hundreds of locals descend on the beach wielding spades. They spend hours digging trenches in the sand and then fill them with old Christmas trees, buried up to their bottom branches. The next time the wind blows, the trees will catch grains of sand in their branches and begin to rebuild Lancashire's last remaining dunes.

It takes six months to a year to build new dunes with this method, a process that can take hundreds of years in nature. The annual Christmas tree burial has completely changed the landscape along the beach - what was once flat is now hilly, covered in grasses and home to around 500 sand lizards.

...

Development, coastal erosion and people using the sand in industry have all forced the dunes into retreat. Fylde Council now bears the responsibility of having Lancashire's only remaining sand dunes, and ranger Andy Singleton Mills looks after them. He says the sand dunes are crucial for Fylde.

"They're a brilliant soft sea defence, they protect all the houses of St Annes and Lytham further down the coast. And they're also a rich cultural feature - they've been here for hundreds of years and they protect so much wildlife."

We reveal walking routes near you that are ideal for scenery, wildlife and peace and quiet.

52 walks rated.

Graham Usher urges Church of England to look into this ‘often very ancient land’, as it prepares to vote on increasing biodiversity

Churchyards should be rewilded to increase biodiversity and to make them “places of the living, not just the dead”, a Church of England bishop has said.

Local parishes are responsible for about 7,100 hectares (17,500 acres) of churchyards in England. The C of E also owns about 34,000 hectares of farmland, mostly let to tenant farmers, and 9,300 hectares of forestry.

The total number of forests in the UK makes up an estimated 3.25 million hectares. They’re vital habitats for plants and wildlife, help sequester carbon and give us the air we breathe. A walk in the woods also benefits our mental and physical health. It invites us to slow down, revel in their beauty and find a greater appreciation for nature.

What Kind Of Forests Are There In The Uk?

Broadleaved woodland is common throughout the UK comprising trees that don’t have needles (e.g. conifers). Common trees are beech, ash, oak and birch.

In Scotland, tiny pockets of native Caledonian pine which once made up a vast forest still exist around lochs and glens.

New native woods have been planted to restore habitats while ancient woodland from around the 1600s or earlier only covers 2.5% of the UK.

Some of the rarest types of woodland are temperate rainforests. Referred to as the Atlantic or Celtic rainforest, it’s thought to be even more threatened than tropical rainforests.

A beach clean is taking place across Cornwall for its seventh year.

The Love Your Beach weekend, organised by Cornwall Wildlife Trust, aims to encourage volunteers to clean rubbish from beaches across the county.

Organisers said it hoped the event would "enable people to feel empowered to make a difference to their local nature".

British wildlife is being failed by the legal system, as people who commit crimes against birds of prey face a less than 4% prosecution rate, a conservation charity has warned.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has warned birds of prey and other British wildlife face routine shooting, trapping or poisoning - putting their populations at risk.

The latest data from the RSPB has found 54 confirmed crimes involving birds of prey in 2022, but just two people were prosecuted.

Wildcats could return to South West England for the first time in more than a century, thanks to a new study by the Devon Wildlife Trust.

The European wildcat, known as the woodcat in England, was once found throughout the UK but was hunted to near-extinction by the 18th century.

They can still be found in remote areas of Scotland, which has led them to be known as the 'Scottish wildcat', although a small population lived on Exmoor until the 1900s.

A national study recently found that the South West was among the best areas in England and Wales for their reintroduction.

DEFRA is seeking views on Natural England’s proposals to change the fees levied under the Wildlife Licence Charges (England) Order 2018.

The changes are required because Natural England needs to:

• enable full cost recovery in line with HM Treasury principles on Managing Public Money;
• introduce charges for new streamlined licensing routes, such as Bat Earned Recognition; and
• ensure funding for licensing service improvements such as digitisation.

There are no proposals to change exemptions to charges.

Share your recent wildlife encounters - large or small.

I haven't had anything really spectacular for a while, but I live in a fairly tucked away spot in East Anglia and the last stretch to reach home is along a farm track with an open field alongside. When I drive home along this in the evenings - with headlights on - one of the brown hares that spend time in the field will run in towards the lights and then curve to run parallel with my car maybe 20m away. I don't know why they do this, but I have found the same behaviour in the past too. I used to live and work on a coastal nature reserve. The drive on or off involved a couple of miles along an open shingle track and hares would frequently do exactly the same there if I crossed it in the evenings with headlights on. They would run in from the surrounding vegetated shingle. It seemed as though they were enjoying the 'race' - staying parallel with the Landrover for some hundreds of meters at a time before peeling off again.

One or two of the hares will visit our garden too later in the year - but they haven't over the winter.

National Nestbox Week is an established part of the ornithological calendar. Celebrated from February 14th each year, it puts the spotlight on breeding birds and asks everyone to put up more nestboxes in their local area.

Some 15 wildlife organisations are meeting in Norfolk to discuss ways of protecting the Eurasian curlew in an event described as the "first of its kind".

Curlew Action is hosting the gathering in King's Lynn and it will include a visit to the RSPB's Snettisham reserve on The Wash, which is a haven for wading birds.

Mary Colwell, founder of Curlew Action, said: "I want people to be aware that one of the iconic birds of the British countryside is declining so rapidly.

Image of basking shark in sea

Basking shark © Alexander Mustard/2020VISION

The Irish Sea Network, which includes Cumbria Wildlife Trust, is urging planners in all six nations bordering the Irish Sea to collaborate and cooperate, for the sake of nature.

In a report out today, the Network calls for planners to work together strategically and ensure that wildlife is protected, as they review how the Irish Sea is used.

The Irish Sea, which is bordered by England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, is coming under significant and increasing pressure from damaging activities such as industrial fishing, aquaculture, offshore renewable energy development, shipping, military activity, recreational activity and pollution. All of these activities take their toll on marine species, that are already endangered by the impacts of climate change.

A mammoth project to restore the Peak District’s “globally significant” landscape is well underway, and we headed to Hade Edge to see the progress being made by Moors for the Future.

Moors for the Future (MFTF) is a not-for-profit partnership working since 2003 to revive the Peak District and part of the Pennine moorland, which became the most degraded upland landscape in Europe due to 200 years of heavy pollution resulting from the industrial revolution, among other factors.

Built like a torpedo, weighing more than a male polar bear when fully grown and fetching prices in Japan of more than £2m for a single fish, the bluefin tuna was once an abundant apex predator in British waters. In the 1960s, these warm-blooded aquatic hunters disappeared – pushed to the brink of extinction in the eastern Atlantic by overfishing.

But since 2014, the enormous migratory fish have returned in their thousands off the coast of south-west England after deep cuts to fishing quotas in the eastern Atlantic to revive the species. Nobody is really sure why they are back in such great numbers – with populations also recovering in the Mediterranean, where the vast majority are caught – but bluefin tuna is no longer listed as an endangered species in the UK, and is now often spotted hunting close to shore by wildlife photographers. With its return, minds have also turned to how to catch it without causing it to vanish from British waters again.