Sounds like an interesting talk,
John Cordeaux mentioned the shooting fraternity's contribution to county natural history in 1893 in his 'Presidential Address' to the
Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union:
“I fear there is no class of men who, considering the very favourable opportunities they have, are so proverbially ignorant of the economy of out-door life as the gamekeepers, and so systematically destroy what it is often their best interest to preserve. Agriculturists, too, as a class, with but few exceptions, are deplorably indifferent to, and ignorant of, the most elementary principles of Natural Science. They care for none of these things.”and he went on:
“Unfortunately, in England the inculcation of scientific knowledge is left almost entirely to private enterprise and in the hands of such societies as ours. This is not the case in foreign states, and notably so in America, where neither pains nor expense are spared in instructing the people. I have now before me a volume, most beautifully illustrated, recently published and issued by the American Government Department of Agriculture, on " The Hawks and Owls of the United States." This book has been scattered wholesale, as a free gift, over the land, and is intended to teach the American farmer the great usefulness of birds of prey, and the good which, as a rule, they confer upon him. Surely we have had object lessons sufficient to bring this matter forcibly home to us in that plague of field voles which has laid waste some of the great sheep farms beyond the border, and the plague of rats in Lincolnshire.” http://www.archive.org/stream/naturalhi ... h_djvu.txtThings have obviously changed significantly, we now have
some large raptors back at least but countryside stewardship is being repeatedly question by the media in the wake of the flooding which can be directly attributed to poor land management and perverse subsidies.
I hope the talk is 'balanced', obviously provision of game cover and retention of what little woodland cover is left in the country is positive, although the impacts of the release of millions of large-bodied non-native gamebirds is likely only to be negative.... I will be intrigued to hear a synopsis for the talk and would definitely go if I were not a hemisphere away.
cheers
Alex
_________________
Dr Alexander C. Lees
Lecturer in tropical ecologyManchester Metropolitan University
Lab Associate
Cornell Lab of Ornithology,
Cornell University
http://www.freewebs.com/alexlees/index.htm@Alexander_Lees
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