Two more red kites have been confirmed by Scottish Government testing to have been illegally killed in north Scotland. Both of these incidents took place in 2014 and are now being made public as the Police have concluded their enquiries. The first victim was found last June near Beauly, and was subsequently confirmed by post-mortem, at the SAC Veterinary laboratory in Inverness, to have been shot. The second red kite was found in September 2014, some 5 kilometres south-east of Cawdor village in Nairnshire. It was confirmed by Scottish Government testing to have been illegally poisoned with a banned pesticide.…

Naturalist, photographer and television presenter Chris Packham is the inaugral speaker for a series of events called the Spirit of John Muir which will kick off with a talk in London on 9 September. The events invite speakers to bring to life the legacy of John Muir – the naturalist, writer, adventurer, explorer and campaigner. Chris Packham will talk about his passion for nature and his vision of how the natural world should best be protected and managed including his views on ‘rewilding’: an approach to restoring ecosystems for people and nature. The evening talk will be held at the…

Chris Packham, the wildlife writer and TV presenter, has thrown his weight behind Rewilding Britain, a new independent charity that aims to restore nature and reintroduce missing species such as wild boar, bison, lynx, pelicans and eventually wolves and sperm whales. On a straight-talking blog published on the charity’s website he describes the current state-of-play as: “a noxious blend of ignorance, ludicrous antipathy and insidious vested interests”. Mr Packham, a zoology graduate, states the case for rewilding: “How much more of our natural heritage needs to be destroyed before we accept that in plain terms that conservation as we currently…

A new organisation, the first of its kind in Britain, was launched yesterday (Tuesday 14 July) and aims to reintroduce wolves, lynx, pelicans and other species. Rewilding Britain is looking to bring back these missing species as well as encouraging native forests and helping parts of the sea recover from industrial fishing. It will seek to restore species that used to live here but have since become extinct or very rare. These include beavers, wild boar, bison, cranes, pelicans, sturgeon, bluefin tuna, lynx and eventually wolves, grey whales, humpbacks and sperm whales. Rewilding Britain hopes to establish at least three…

The John Muir Trust today welcomed the decision by Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing to reject an application for a major wind farm adjacent to the East Halladale Flows Wild Land Area in Caithness. The development would have led to the erection of 24 turbines up to 456 feet high, as well as foundations roads, tracks, transmission lines and other infrastructure in an area renowned for its unique landscape and ecosystem. But following a Public Local Inquiry, the scheme has been rejected because of its potential impact on the Wild Land Areas map, which was developed by Scottish Natural Heritage…

An adult humpback whale, possibly greater than 12 metres in length, has been sighted in the Firth of Clyde this week – the fifth such whale to be seen off western Scotland in the past month, compared with a usual total of just one or two per year. The whale was sighted off Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute on 6 July. On 8 July it surfaced alongside the Scottish Ocean Youth Trust’s yacht, spouting and swimmingly strongly in a northward direction into Loch Fyne. The whale was observed breaching out of the water and lob-tailing – a dramatic manoeuvre…

The decision to turn down plans for a wind farm on the edge of the world-renowned Glen Affric area, west of the Great Glen, has been welcomed as “positive news” by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland and the John Muir Trust. The proposal, by German developers, wpd, would have led to the construction of six turbines, each 400 foot high, on the edge of one of Scotland’s most famous landscapes. The project was opposed by wild land charity the John Muir Trust, the Mountaineering Council of Scotland which represents Scotland’s hillwalkers and mountaineers, two local community councils and over 1,000…