Wtf! This is heartbreaking and pure eco vandalism. We need to name and shame @Hill_Group_UK@MoleValleyDC and @SurreyPolice for this. ๐
A building that was a noted nesting site for swifts, among the UKโs most at-risk birds, has been demolished during the nesting season, highlighting significant weaknesses in the protection of wildlife from development, campaigners say.
Contractors for the housebuilder Hill Group carried out the demolition of Regent House near Dorking station in Surrey over the last few weeks, during the nesting season which runs from 1 March to 31 August.
Footage captured last week shows swifts attempting to return to nests in the building, which was known to be home to one of the largest populations of the birds in the Mole Valley area in Surrey. They approach and then repeatedly turn away because their nests are no longer there.
The building was a known habitat for nesting swifts. Volunteers for Swift Protection Association Reigate have recorded very intense low-level flying involving as many as 40 birds using about 20 sites in the eaves of the building in early spring and summer for several years.
Demolition and construction work are heavily restricted during the nesting season under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. It is an offence to intentionally or recklessly damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built, or to disturb dependent young.
Annie Griffin of Banstead Swifts, a volunteer group that monitors and tries to stabilise swift populations, said residents raised the alarm with Surrey police wildlife officers in early May, shortly after the swifts returned from migration and were observed nesting in the building. Mole Valley district council (MVDC) was also told about the birdsโ presence.
Despite this, demolition proceeded during peak nesting season,โ said Griffin. โConservationists are now describing the incident as a significant wildlife crime, raising broader concerns about the enforcement of environmental protections during development across England.โ
Regent House was demolished as part of a development of 126 flats by Clarion housing association. An impact assessment carried out for the developers by the Arbtech environmental consultancy said demolition and construction should take place outside the nesting season.
If a different timeframe could not be avoided, it said, an ecological expert would have to undertake a thorough inspection before the start of any work and all active nests would have to be retained until the young had fledged.
The Guardian asked Hill Group and Clarion if such an ecological inspection had taken place in the last few weeks, but they declined to answer. They also refused to say the timeframe for the demolition could not be avoided.
https://t.co/OcZuZguX6r
๐จ Mid Sussex Police are urging the public to report anyone using catapults against wildlife. It is a crime under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981, with offenders facing unlimited fines & up to 6 months in jail. Report in-progress incidents to 999 or 101.
@NealTalkin@HumaneScum@DrNeilStone I think that Nordic people are very keen on a bit of sun worshipping whenever they can. The longer and darker your winters, the more enthusiastic you are about stripping off in the sun.
@HumaneScum@DrNeilStone I'll have a go at this. Could it possibly be skin type coupled with certain cultures being more inclined to lie in the midday sun until they're a crispy salmon pink?
Walk your lawn before you mow it. Especially in spring and summer, especially after rain.
Lawn mowers kill toads, fledgling birds, snakes, baby rabbits, and box turtles by the millions every summer. None of them get out of the way fast enough. Most of them are exactly the species your yard most benefits from having around.
Two minutes of walking before you start the mower saves all of this. Look for matted patches of dead-looking grass (rabbit nests), small ground depressions, sleeping toads in the morning dew, fledgling birds hidden in long grass, and any small turtle you weren't expecting.
If you find a rabbit nest, flag the corners with garden stakes and mow around it for the next 2 to 3 weeks. The babies leave the nest on their own.
Two minutes of looking is the difference between a perfect lawn and a perfect lawn that didn't kill anything.
@Alexandr4Denman I've always had a soft spot for Sikhs, but it's ridiculous to allow one group of people to carry a lethal weapon because "religion ". And it's ridiculous that I feel the need to qualify my comment with a denial of racist intentions. Oh dear. This is modern Britain.
STOLENโฆSTOLENโฆSTOLEN ๐๐๐ก๐ก๐ก๐ก
PLEASE HELP BRING ELEANOR HOME ๐๐๐
Eleanor has been taken from My Lovely Horse Rescue, and we are beyond devastated๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
This sweet little girl was rescued two years ago and has done nothing to deserve this.
If the person or people responsible are reading this, please do the right thing and return her safely.
Whatever your feelings towards the rescue, Eleanor is innocent and should not be caught in the middle.
If you have any information about where Eleanor may be, no matter how small it seems, please contact us.
Every call, text, and message will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Call or text: 087 261 1463
Or send us a private message
Please share this post widely and help us bring Eleanor home safely. ๐๐๐๐๐
The collapse of India's vultures killed 500,000 people.
A peer-reviewed 2024 study in the American Economic Review put the toll at 100,000 extra human deaths per year for five straight years.
In 1994, Indian farmers began giving their cattle diclofenac, which is a common painkiller. The drug caused fatal kidney failure in any vulture that fed on a treated carcass. India's vulture population dropped from roughly 50 million birds to 20,000 in a decade. Three species crashed by more than 99%.
Vultures had been the country's free, invisible sanitation system. A flock could strip a dead cow in 30 minutes, sterilizing the meat with stomach acid strong enough to kill anthrax, rabies, and most pathogens that survive in rotting flesh.
When the vultures disappeared, the carcasses stayed in fields and on roadsides for weeks. Feral dog populations exploded by at least 5 million due to the extra calories they could scavenge. Rabies cases surged. Fecal bacteria in drinking water more than doubled. Farmers began dumping dead livestock in rivers. It was an ecological crisis on multiple fronts.
India banned diclofenac for veterinary use in 2006. Vulture numbers are now recovering slowly. But the death toll from those years is the price tag of erasing a single species from a single ecosystem.
It's easy to look at a "gross" animal like a vulture and wonder, 'what good is it?' But time and time again, we see that when species disappear, it creates catastrophic human consequences as well.
@helensaxby11@jamesmurray_ldn Good good. ๐ I'm never going to ridicule anyone for changing their mind in the light of learning something new. ๐ ๐
Thank you @Daniel_J_Martin. "Sir Edโs statement drew stinging criticism from Dr Zoe Hollowood.
โPolling consistently shows that Lib Dem voters and members believe single-sex spaces should be protected based on biological sex,โ she said. โIgnoring this reality is a betrayal to women everywhere, including in our own party.โ" https://t.co/tyVccyqnOL
Ed Davey has written to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson demanding she WITHDRAW official EHRC guidance protecting female-only spaces in toilets and changing rooms.
Let that land.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission โ a statutory body โ has produced legally grounded guidance telling employers and public bodies that biological men should not access womenโs single-sex spaces.
This is not opinion.
This is not politics.
This is the settled legal position following the Supreme Courtโs landmark ruling on the meaning of โwomanโ under the Equality Act.
And Ed Davey wants it gone.
His stated reason?
The guidance is not โcompatible with long-standing British values.โ
British values.
He used those words to argue AGAINST protecting womenโs single-sex spaces.
The same Liberal Democrats who lecture the country about tolerance, inclusion and human rights are now lobbying a Labour minister to tear up statutory guidance that protects every woman in Britain who walks into a changing room, a refuge or a hospital ward.
This is not a fringe position within the Lib Dems.
Their leader wrote the letter.
The party has chosen its side.
It is not the side of women.
Repost if you think womenโs single-sex spaces should be protected.
@DreyfusJames To be fair, kids do keep drowning themselves in cold water. I think shock tactics would probably work better than polite reminders. They should create adverts that scare the life out of them like they used to do to us.