FIRECREST TOURS : Guided Birdwatching & Wildlife Days

By Ian Newton X-ray of a Wood Pigeon sold by a game dealer: note the tiny radio-dense lead particles which would go unnoticed by the consumer. Pic by Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Abstract A conference in Oxford in 2014 focussed on the continuing use of lead ammunition in game hunting. The evidence presented and subsequent discussion examined various aspects of this issue, including the effects on both humans and wildlife, alternatives to lead, previous and future restrictions on the use of lead ammunition and the problems of awareness among both the hunting community and the wider public. This short paper summarises the debate.

by Steve Portugal Sometimes it can get a little depressing when all the news about the state of the environment and Britain's countryside is bad; farmland devoid of birdlife, wetlands being drained and forestry being cut down. But it's not all doom and gloom, over the last decade many threatened species have been able to make successful comebacks, thanks mainly to the help of conservation charities and organisations such as English Nature, the RSPB and hundreds of dedicated volunteers from estate agents to students to housewives and the police.

Fight Against Illegal Bird Killing, Trapping, Hunting & Egg Collecting Poisoned Golden Eagle by Murdo Macleod Show your support for stricter laws against bird crimes to help save birds from illegal killing, poaching, persecution, trapping, hunting & egg collecting. We can use power in numbers via social media to express our concerns & encourage enforcement of stricter laws against, change in governments' attitudes towards, & raise awareness of, bird crimes & what needs to be done to stop these atrocities. 'Like' the Fight Bird Crimes &  Fight Bird Crimes Facebook Page at  facebook.com/FightBirdCrimes  where you can have your say, post information, or share articles. You can join here  by clicking the 'Like' button below. You can also help spread the word & show your support for the cause on Twitter & Google+ by using the buttons below. Follow @FightBirdCrimes Tweet #TwitterStories Worldwide we have ...

Here is the RSPB's report on bird crime in 2012 which includes accounts of individual offences against bird legislation. The full PDF can be viewed full screen, with larger text or zoomed in  here .

Trophy exhibition on Facebook This Lebanese poacher proudly displays a shot White Stork A freshly-shot, still living Short-toed Eagle is proudly presented as a trophy. Armed men pose with freshly killed cranes and pelicans. Another hunter holding a dead Lesser Spotted Eagle grins into the camera lens. His hunting companion has neatly draped his bag for the day - hundreds of shot song birds - on a bedsheet. Two children, hardly eight years of age - inspect wide-eyed two dead Honey Buzzards that their father has brought back today from the hunt. Another still life shows nine freshly shot White Storks in the foreground with behind them the hunter, completely relaxed with a cigarette in one hand and the beak of one of the storks in the other. Such photos give an idea of the incredible damage that Lebanese poachers inflict on the European bird populations. There are several hundreds, perhaps thousands of such trophy pictures. Most are taken by the poachers themselves to show off to...

World premiere of the film about CABS in England Bonn/Sheffield.  The activist operations by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter for better protection of migrant birds are the theme of a new documentary film that has its world premiere at the Sheffield Docs Film Festival this weekend. Under the title  Emptying The Skies  the New York bestselling author Jonathan Franzen and director Roger Kass expose how millions of European songbirds land in the cooking pot every year, under the pretext of retaining ‘old traditions’ and ‘sustainable use’. Bestselling author and bird lover Jonathan Franzen (CABS) The screenplay is written around a group of international activists from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter, who travel every year in spring and autumn to the poaching hotspots - mainly in Southern Europe - to combat illegal bird hunting and trapping. Jonathan Franzen and the film crew shadowed the operations - now well known internationally as  CABS bird protection c...