|
I finely resigned from BC after forty years of life membership. I now have no loyalty to them whatsoever.
Please find the following for your kind posting on the Lincs Bird Club Forum which I hope is self-explanatory.
I fully accept any potential legal matters arising from the publication thereof.
Putting the Record Straight
I leave it to the reader to discern just how truthful the difficulty was of one Dr. Barry Prater of claiming the first discovery in 2003 of Brown Hairstreak in Nottinghamshire since Victorian times, see Prater, B., 2003, Butterfly Conservation, East Midlands Branch Newsletter no.33, Mission Impossible!, p.22 & 23. At the time he was Butterfly Conservation’s East Midlands Branch Organiser and before making public his “Mission Impossible!” he asked me for details of my local introductions so that sightings might be properly interpreted. Amongst those freely given was information of a site represented by a six figure grid reference where I had placed Brown Hairstreaks a few years before. This was subsequently confirmed as the same area where he then made his “long-lost” butterfly discovery of a lifetime.
All attempts so far to have my side of the story given equal airing in any or more particularly in the offending publication have been met with varying degrees of distain and a conspicuous lack of apology by sundry officials of Butterfly Conservation. The least distasteful albeit not an offering to be lain at the door of a sceptic came in 2004 from the then Hon. Chairman, Dudley Cheesman, who claimed that, “The good doctor didn’t wish to imply he’d actually made a discovery, he’d in all innocence just accidently strung together an unfortunate selection of words which made it look as if he had.” I made it plain that if he actually expected me to believe such probity we had better send an immediate letter to the General Medical Council explaining that with a disorder of this nature the ill-fated practitioner might easily be writing medical notes of such hullabaloo to provide them plentifully with fatality cases for years to come. Cheesman declined. With lessening charlatanism, Cheesman then partly redeemed himself by making it abundantly clear Prater would henceforth find a distinct lack of patronage from within the society. Consequently, a very gloomy cloud materialised over Prater’s head and he left fairly subdued under it, and shortly thereafter so did the equally complicit and ineffectual County Records Officer, a certain Mr. Michael Walker. However, the problem of my bowdlerised information still remained, and doubtless spread asunder, propagated from the heads of the 406 unfortunates unlucky enough to subscribe a copy of the tainted newsletter in question.
I hope, to others at least, this helpful though singular account has now straightened the record about the Brown Hairstreaks of Nottinghamshire’s recent past. What other details made dubious and currently languishing in the constipated computer system of Butterfly Conservation ambushed by Prater and cronies for their own private amusement can only be speculated.
My accountability rests solely moot in my gullibility and not in the fact that I released the insects in the first place nor equally that the badly affected might contrive the rare insect they just witnessed an unspecified one of mine. Without access to free speech or a strong laxative to unblock the bowl movements of the vulgar the rest of my data, most probably made rubbish, remains unchallenged. I hereby also raise a strong objection to having had my hard work treated in such an unfair way having first freely spent my time sorting, compiling and sending data on the supposed understanding of helping butterfly recorders.
Sending Butterfly Conservation more information while this situation remains would not only make me stupid but, with an unchallengeable opportunity to do the same again, equally culpable. Within the constraints of the legal system and as the Lincolnshire Bird Club Forum maintains a policy agreeing in the freedom of speech it has my full co-operation should it be needed.
Martin White
|
Login
FAQ
Search
