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STOBOROUGH HYDE HEATH obliteration |
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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Posted: 19 Jun 2009 at 6:10pm |
Last week ending May ..well heres a few shots of over management by the RSPB on Hyde heath between Furzebrook road and the A351 at Stoborough that has destroyed habitat of all species of our herps I have seen adders sand lizard lv nats etc on this Clearance area couldnt manage by hand had the f**king bulldozers in might just as well set fire to the place!! And is a larger area and worse then the photos depict well done RSPB cant have done the birds any favours.what do you think [IMG]uploads/AGILIS/2009-06-19_180854_2009_0531sssssssssssssss0015.JPG"> [IMG]uploads/AGILIS/2009-06-19_181002_2009_0531sssssssssssssss0018.JPG"> [IMG]uploads/AGILIS/2009-06-19_181037_2009_0531sssssssssssssss0016.JPG"> Edited by AGILIS - 10 Nov 2013 at 9:25am |
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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Iowarth
Admin Group Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Status: Offline Points: 743 |
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Hi Keith
Sorry I have been so slow to respond. All of my limited spare time has been spent amending even more of the code on the site to try and make everything work right on the new server. Back to your piccies though, I must say that does seem more than a little heavy handed. I am quite astonished. Quite apart from the fact that I would have thought ground nesting birds would have been in the middle of that. Ah well, looks like the nesting birds and a goodly number of strictly protected endangered herps are now part of the mud! Seems to me there is a world of difference between management and destruction. It is hard to imagine that the RSPB would do such a thing - probably their mistake was to leave it to contractors. Chris |
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Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme (RETIRED) |
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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hi Chris yep heavy handed sums it up in more polite terms, I was stunned when I see it as I only get a few weekends in the south these days and have visited this area over many years from boy to old boy , and found it very depressing to think that this wide spread destruction is happening everywhere all the time these days. I see no probs thinning out gorse and over grown brambles that can swamp areas, The so called Rspb management must know that this is also habitat for herps animals and birds alike, what ever happened to man power armed with billhooks I am sure that there are still volunteers around with some form of conservation skills?..
Edited by AGILIS |
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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administrator
Admin Group Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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It's down to cost Keith, same thing all over. Same sort of treatment of Danbury Common and Backwarden. Yes it needed management, but not like this. What we loose is the soil structure too, it took years to form and is the reason we find herps on heaths and not in arable fields. Now some of these heaths have less value than an arable field. But it is cheaper to get the job done by sending a contractor to bulldoze the site.
I've said it before and I will say it again, IF A DEVELOPER DID THIS THEY WOULD BE IN COURT - so why are the 'wildlife conservation organisations' getting away with it? Longterm gains... no I know enough sites now that have had this sort of treatment in the past ten years where the animals are simply EXTINCT. Gone for good. The 'management' funding stream has dried up and it is reverting to gorse scrub. Conservation gain 0, negative effective 100% Keep posting up the pictures Keith, one day they may even listen. |
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Suzi
Senior Member Joined: 06 Apr 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1025 |
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Keith, You do realise that the photos you took show how naturally grazing cattle keep the heaths as they were in days of yore? They do this in Devon too. I am very impressed with how they push all the bits they can't chew into tidy piles like you have photographed |
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Suz
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Iowarth
Admin Group Joined: 12 Apr 2004 Status: Offline Points: 743 |
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Damn clever these cows!
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Chris Davis, Site Administrator
Co-ordinator, Sand Lizard Captive Breeding Programme (RETIRED) |
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wellies101
Member Joined: 04 Dec 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 14 |
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Have they explained (on-site) what work was done and why?
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administrator
Admin Group Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Status: Offline Points: 10 |
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Are you being serious? The work that was done was a bulldozer was used to clear annoying gorse (the same gorse that produces fantastic underground root systems used by native herptiles and provides essential cover)
The reason, because they got given some money to do it.
And before you come back on me Wellies... show me the pre-works survey report, you know the one written by a professional reptile specialist who surveyed the site (at the correct times of year and with sufficient effort) before they sent the diggers in......... Welcome to the real world of conservation in action. I really should dig out some of my photos. The one of the Fire brigade doing their best to save a piece of heathland that was set light to by 'conservation volunteers' as I stood and watched after I repeatly stated over several years on this forum that Essex Wildlife trust should not light fires each spring during the spring adder emergence right next to the main hibernacula in an area surrounded by gorse and dry bracken comes to mind... Or perhaps the photographs of the 'professional worker' at the controls of a tractor trashing adder habitat, who stated in an email that he saw, 'lots of adders in the area' and when challenged by myself to stop trashing the area stated 'this isn't adder habitat'. I had over 50 survey records for adder in that area. Guess what, not seen one there for three years. |
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AGILIS
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1689 |
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On the other hand perhaps this has been cleared for a nature centre to inform people about the now exstinct animals that once lived on the insitu site keith
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LOCAL ICYNICAL CELTIC ECO WARRIOR AND FAILED DRUID
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Peter
Senior Member Joined: 17 Jan 2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 310 |
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I wish I could say that this suprises me but unfortunately it doesn`t.
Conservation in action indeed. Superb timing on the contractor`s behalf, affecting the widest diversity of wildlife possible. |
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BLF Dragonscapes Habitats officer
Amphibian and Reptile Conservation e: peter.hill@arc-trust.org |
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