Off the Leash Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Dominic Dyer, Charlie Moores, and Lisa Marley
Podcasts, Shortcasts, and Interviews from environmental and animal welfare campaigners Charlie Moores, Dominic Dyer, and Lisa Marley.
I tweeted recently - I'm @charliemoores if you'd like to check this out or follow me - that I'd been a little bit quiet on Substack, the blogging platform I use.I explained why in a post I wrote called 'Choosing sides on August 12th'...and it occurred to me that actually I'd been a bit quiet on Buzzsprout too - so here's that blog in audio form, slightly changed to fit the rhythms of my speech but well, the sentiments and intentions are exactly the same...
So, About five years ago a senior charity figure ‘advised’ me (way too aggressively for my liking) to ‘choose sides’. It seemed an odd and unnecessary thing to say. I had ‘chosen sides’ years earlier: I was on the side of wildlife, of plants, of biodiversity and nature and was utterly opposed to hunting, shooting, cruelty, exploitation, and wildlife crime. I’d proved that over and over again, right back from when I launched Charlie’s Bird Blog (hat was in a distant past before WordPress and home wi-fi) writing about what I saw birding around the world with an airline I worked for (and which I left in 2010). Proved it again when after what I thought was a friendly merger with a similar but US-based blog called 10,000 Birds I was booted off at short notice (literally almost overnight) because my anti-hunting views were ‘upsetting’ Americans and I refused to compromise. Again when I launched Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC) a decade ago and came up with the 3Rs (Recognise, Record, Report). When I helped launch Hen Harrier Day - an idea initially conceived by BAWC member Alan Tilmouth and brilliantly taken up by Mark Avery and Chris Packham. When I started podcasting under the Talking Naturally banner. When I joined the board of League Against Cruel Sports to help fashion a policy on shooting (I did my term and moved on). When in 2015 I was asked by Lush founder Mark Constantine - a Talking Naturally listener - to make podcasts on wildlife and the environment for him and Lush.
Listening back to all of that I suppose I have moved around a bit looking for the ‘ideal situation’, but I’d clearly chosen sides a long, long time ago. And I like to think I’ve carried on in the same vein since with The War on Wildlife Project and Off the Leash. In just the last four months I’ve written or podcasted about, for example, gamekeepers and raptor persecution, explained why if foxhunting is banned it still takes place, discussed the royal immunity from crime in relation to two Hen Harriers killed at Sandringham, and why the shooting industry needs - unequivocally - to be stopped.
Anyway, I’m on the move again, taking my love of wildlife and my total opposition to hunting and shooting with me. Taking everything I’ve learned over the years, and all of the experiences I’ve built up and the contacts I’ve made. Taking my energy, focus, and drive. Where am I going? I’m going to be joining Rob Pownall and Matt Smithers at Keep The Ban.
- Follow me on Twitter https://twitter.com/charliemoores
- For more information on Keep The Ban please go to the website https://www.keeptheban.uk/ and follow them (us!) on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram
In this podcast I talk with professional ecologists Tom Langton and Dominic Woodfield as we discuss a number of related issues that we’ve grouped together under the tite ‘Badger Culls, Biodiversity, Birds and the High Court’. It’s a complex conversation, and it takes experts like Tom and Dominic to explain everything so clearly: it includes duties to protect wildlife and the repeated failure of statutory bodies with respect to those duties which – depending on an upcoming Court Appeal on July 26th– could bring the ‘Next Steps’ 2020 badger cull policy crashing down; a report using volunteer data produced in 2018 by the British Trust for Ornithology, which supposedly looked at the impact on ground-nesting birds of carnivore or mesopredator release (a phenomenon in which populations of medium-sized predators eg foxes rapidly increase in ecosystems after the removal of larger, top carnivores eg badgers) – a reportthat was rejected by peer reviewers but still emerged – re-written – in 2021 and has been used to justify the badger cull since then; and something called ‘the no difference defence’ used by government nature bodies to justify their actions, which - in my opinion - is just mind-blowing…
For more information on the badger cull:
- BadgerCrowd Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/BadgerCrowd
- EuroBadger Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/euro_badger
- Tom Langton Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/tomlangton60
- Dominic Woodfield / Bioscan - http://bioscanuk.com/default.aspx
A conversation with a pioneer of non-animal testing Dr Carol Treasure. Carol is a founder of XCellR8, a laboratory exclusively devoted to animal-free safety and efficacy tests for the cosmetics, personal care and chemical industries. XCellR8’s clients include high street retail brands, large ingredient manufacturers and fast growth SMEs.
Many of XCellR8’s tests are for moisturisers, soaps and shampoos – in fact, if you use a product from Lush, chances are its components were tested for how they will react with your skin by Carol and her team right here in the north of England…
There are two parts to our chat: the first takes place in the XCellR8 lab itself, and the second in a much quieter meeting room upstairs. We cover quite a range of issues ranging from the ethical to the scientific and the commercial – all with Carol’s good humour and infectious enthusiasm to the fore.
But first of all, let’s get over that tricky first introduction…
- Website https://x-cellr8.com
- Donate - https://x-cellr8.com/about-xcellr8/donate-to-xcellr8/
- Twitter - https://twitter.com/XCellR8_Labs
- Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/XCellR8
- Carol on Twitter - https://twitter.com/DrCarolTreasure
- Anne-Marie Barton 24hr Crate of Loneliness - https://www.gofundme.com/f/24hr-crate-of-loneliness
- FRAME website – https://frame.org.uk
- Animal Aid - https://www.animalaid.org.uk/
Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss attempts by fox-hunting supporters. to intimidate activists. It's nothing new of course, but it should always be called out. In this particular instance, fox hunting supporters are making threats towards a hotel in Peterborough where the League Against Cruel Sports is hosting their next Enough is Enough event on June 17th and at which Dominic will be speaking...
- Register for free for ‘Enough is Enough’ at The Bull Hotel and Conference Centre, Peterborough, June 17th starting at 19:00.
- League Against Cruel Sports Website and Twitter feed
"I've tried to write the book that I felt I needed to read when I was younger, but I hope it appeals to all age groups." Trust me Sophie, it does...
A conversation with zoologist and science communicator Sophie Pavelle, about her first book, Forget Me Not, which is subtitled “Finding the forgotten species of climate change Britain”.
We spoke shortly before Forget Me Not’s launch date and discussed what the book is about, Sophie’s modern and fresh writing style (a style that I think makes her a unique and very important voice), and the lessons she’d learnt travelling the length and breadth of Britain looking for species ranging from seagrass and salmon to Mountain Hares and Marsh Fritillaries.
I began though by asking Sophie about something she’d said in the epilogue to Forget Me Not that had really caught my attention: “Thank you to Dr Ruth Tingay for lifting me away from the dreaded imposter syndrome”. Sophie has packed a massive amount into a very short time. She’s a presenter, a writer, an ambassador for the Wildlife Trusts, sits on the RSPB Advisory Committee for England, has done an enormous hike for charity, and was now being published by Bloomsbury! In what sense, I asked her, could she possibly be called an ‘imposter’ – an overachiever perhaps, but not an imposter...?
- Bloomsbury Publishing Forget Me Not (Available from 09 June 2022)
- Sophie Pavelle Instagram and Twitter feeds
- Beaver Trust Website and Twitter feed
In the latest episode of The Off the leash Podcast Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer look at the latest on the badger cull - in other words, a climbdown by Defra; the findings of the Foreign Affairs Committee on Afghanistan & Nowzad - basically the most senior civil servants were found to be uncooperative and evasive; Dominic’s upcoming documentary which starts filming very soon; but we start with the submission Dominic and Born Free made to the EFRA Committee (the committee which examines the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and its associated public bodies) on trade with the Faroes in relation to the Grind and the slaughter of pilot whales and other marine mammals - total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Faroe Islands was a staggering£881 million in the four quarters to the end of Q4 2021, an increase of 90.3% or £418 million from the four quarters to the end of Q4 2020!
- Gov Committee Role - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
- Sea Shepherd Operation Bloody Fjords 2022
- DTI Trade and Investment Factsheets Faroe Islands (May 2022)
- Gov Committee Missing in action: UK leadership and the withdrawal from Afghanistan (May 2022)
- Vet Record Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020
- Off the Leash Interview #23 Tom Langton and Dr Mark Jones | Badger Culling Research
- Off the Leash Interview #27 Keep the Ban | Skydiving to Expose Cubbing
- Shit Lawns Twitter feed
- Off the Leash Interview #25 Saffron Gloyne | Animal Welfare Party Candidate
"As one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, Britain has a long way to go. Somerset’s super nature reserve is a great start; but it must also be an opportunity to change the way we regard and manage the countryside for the 21st century." (Stephen Moss, Observer Comment, 22 May 22)
A conversation with birder, award-winning author, bird tour leader, BAFTA award-winning television producer, a stalwart of the British Birdfair, President of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, teacher of an MA in Travel and Nature Writing at Bath Spa University - and journalist - Stephen Moss.
Stephen and I have been talking about having a chat for a podcast for a while but when I heard last week that Natural Egland and the government had declared a new 'super National Nature Reserve' on the Somerset Levels - which is right on Stephen's doorstep - and moments later read an Observer Comment piece online written by him on this exact same subject ( that quote at the start of this podcast came from that piece) - well, the stars had surely aligned! Just days later we met up at the RSPB's Ham Wall reserve - part of The Somerset Wetlands National Nature Reserve, famed for its huge wintering starling flocks and for being the first reserve in climate-change Britain where three previously vagrant heron species - great white egret, cattle egret, and little bittern - have all bred.
So what is a 'super national nature reserve', what function should sites like this have in terms of conservation, public access, and public good, do conservation organisations develop wetland sites like Ham Wall because they're powerless to halt climate change, and will I be able to edit a recording where we were constantly interrupting ourselves to look at Marsh Harriers and Bitterns?
I'll give it a go...
- Stephen Moss Website and Twitter feed
- Observer Comment This ‘super reserve’ is not just for the birds (Stephen Moss
- Government press-release New ‘super’ National Nature Reserve created to protect rare wildlife (19 May 22)
- RSPB Reserves Ham Wall
For more audio - and blogs - on wildlife, animal rights, and the environment, please go to offtheleash.substack.com
A conversation with pro-wildlife campaigner Rob Pownall, founder of Keep the Ban.
We’re talking shortly before Rob jumps out of an aeroplane 10000’ above the Kent countryside to raise funds for a very special project to raise public awareness about one of fox hunting’s dirtiest secrets – cubbing. Cubbing, as you’ll hear us discuss, is a disgusting form of animal abuse, a wildlife crime where – to put it simply - fox hunters train their hounds by setting them on fox cubs. Rob is absolutely determined – and I’m absolutely determined with him – to talk about this issue so much and in so many spaces that – eventually – there will not be a single member of the public who doesn’t know what cubbing is and who doesn’t want it stopped…
- Crowdfunder Rob’s Skydive to Expose Cubbing
- Keep the Ban Website and Twitter feed
- Charlie Moores Shortcast #34 Cubbing
"I think what my life has taught me so far is that hardly anything is impossible if you work hard enough and you are passionate enough about. It is incredible the difference one person can make..." (Sam Hutchinson)
A conversation between Off the Leash’s Dominic Dyer and Sam Hutchinson, the founder of the animal welfare charity Power of One, which is described as a "platform which gives small charities and teams across the world a voice and the opportunity to connect with people like you, who want to help in the treatment, neutering and rehoming of dogs who have been neglected, abused or abandoned in some of the worst conditions imaginable".
Dominic is an ambassador for Power of One, and spoke at the charity's official launch at Westminster's Church House on the 30th of April this year, when an incredible £40,000 was raised.
In their discussion, Sam and Dominic talk about that glittering lanch and Sam's hopes for her new charity, but Dominic began by asking Sam about her background and the drive that took her from reputedly the largest council estate in Europe to studying law at Manchester Unversity and on to an outstanding career in fund finance: Sam joined prestigious legal firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in 2018 and has now advised on some of the largest subscription and leverage deals in the market...
- For more information please go to the Power of One website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed
A short conversation between Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer about the Queen's Speech and animal welfare legislation.
Yesterday, May 10th, the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the government’s legislative agenda for the next parliamentary year, was given in the House of Lords. It was - according to most commentators - a drab affair, a mix of new plans, long-made pledges and a handful of held-over bills. On animal welfare legislation, though, it was universally slammed with promises broken and pledges abandoned.
The Government did say that it is still committed to legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies, with The Secretary of State for Defra George Eustice quoted by a senior Conservative Mp Sir Roger Gale saying that it "will go ahead and be tougher than the manifesto commitment" but it has cancelled the flagship Animals Abroad Bill that would have outlawed trade in fur, stopped advertisers promoting exploitative animal events like elephant rides, and the import of foie gras....reportedly because MPs like Jacob Rees-Mogg said it was 'un-Conservative' to restrict choice - and by that he means his choice to eat foie gras rather than the choice of geese not to be force-fed grain until their livers explode...
- Government website Transcript of the Queen's Speech 2022
"Talk to your candidates...find out if they really care."
A conversation with powerhouse campaigner Saffron Gloyne, who has been selected to represent the Animal Welfare Party in the May local elections. Saffron is one of thirteen candidates in Croydon’s Addiscombe West ward where three seats are available. According to the Animal Welfare Party's website, Saffron will focus her campaign on standing up against wildlife crime in Croydon, championing the borough’s ability to become a nationwide leader in the battle against single-use plastic, and opposing cruel duckling & chick hatching projects in the borough’s schools.
She says of standing as a candidate for the Animal Welfare Party “This felt like a natural progression for me. In order to effect widespread, tangible progress and improve conditions for the animals and people in our community, there needs to be a voice in the council speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves. I hope to galvanise the local community and the council in making choices that benefit all of us and ensure the future of our environment.”
- Animal Welfare Party Website and Twitter feed
- Animal Welfare Party Candidates 2022
- Saffron Gloyne Twitter feed
- Jane Smith (elected Animal Welfare Party councillor) Twitter feed
- Charlie Moores Twitter feed
I woke up this morning to a thrush’s liquid song cascading from the top of an oak tree about 100m away. Phrase after phrase, loud and clear. Not the repetitive song of a Song Thrush, nor the more mellow conversation of a Blackbird, but the melodious outpouring of a Mistle Thrush. Perched, typically, in the open, bold as brass, daring the local Sparrowhawk to interrupt, swept up in the power of his own remarkable voice as it bounced around off the stone walls of our home.
During lockdown I bought a parabolic reflector for moments just like this, and over the last few weeks I’ve been wandering around recording bird songs and layering them together. Common species (at least around here), including Blackbird, Song Thrush, Robin, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Great and Blue Tits, Nuthatch, and Wren. I’ve caught snippets of the drumming of a Great Spotted Woodpecker, the first Chiffchaff of the spring, a pair of Wood Pigeons sitting in the sun, our local Rooks flying overhead. I even went out on a frosty morning and caught a barking Roe Deer echoing through a piece of woodland I can see from my window. And now was a perfect time to record that beautiful Mistle Thrush.
The result is only short (less than six minutes) and to be honest no one morning sounds exactly like this, but forgive me for any ‘audio licence’ because I hope - as it does for me - this brief dawn chorus transports you to somewhere soothing, a place of abundance, and far, far from the headlines.
- Header image Peter Cook/Alamy
Dominic Dyer speaking at a PETA UK reception, where to quote PETA, “MPs had the opportunity to see and feel the world’s first faux bear fur, a fabric that has been expertly created by luxury faux furrier ECOPEL to replace the bearskins used to make the Queen’s Guard’s caps”Dominic and I have discussed this issue in numerous podcasts before (eg Shortcast #53 Dominic Dyer | Bear Hats and Ben Wallace ), but essentially – exactly as that quote from PETA explains – the Ministry of Defence have been asked to replace the bearskin ‘caps’ made from Canadian-slaughtered Black Bears worn by the Queen’s Guards. The MoD came up with five ‘conditions’ that needed to be met before they would even discuss replacing ‘tradition’ with an animal-rights sourced faux-fur no matter how environmentally sound it is.
- Petition: Replace the real bearskins used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps with faux fur
A slightly truncated Off the Leash Podcast this time around, as Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer focus on why they’ve been saying ‘Off the leash Podcasts is dead, long live Off the Leash’ this week (Charlie posted a shortcast explaining about the upcoming changes earlier this week, but we wanted to discuss it at more length),' we outline upcoming events this week, including a Parliamentary reception organised by PETA UK as part of the ongoing campaign against the fur caps worn by the Queen's Guards; and we name our Heroes and Villains of the week (this time lauding PC Claire Dinsdale QPM and slating the cabal of interests that have sidelined her and the investigation in Dorset into the death of a young White-tailed Eagle from the Isle of Wight reintroduction project).
- Shortcast #82 Charlie Moores | Off the Leash Podcasts is dead, long live Off the Leash
- PETA UK Stop Bear Slaughter: PETA Unveils Faux-Fur Queen’s Guard Cap
- PC Claire Dinsdale Twitter feed
- The Guardian Disbanding of Dorset wildlife crime team puts birds of prey ‘at risk’
- Raptor Persecution UK Chris Packham submits FoI requests to Dorset Police & the Crime Commissioner
“Off the Leash Podcasts is dead, long live Off the Leash”. Okay, that’s a little over-dramatic, but I was looking for a way to get people’s attention and referencing regnal succession and using a phrasal template seemed like a good idea…
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. We are coming up to the first anniversary of Off the Leash Podcasts (or OTL) – we launched our podcast trailer on April 30th 2021 - and while things have been going really well (we’ve had almost 40k downloads now), we’ve decided things need changing a little. A bit of ‘reframing’.
Why? Because we’ve noticed a problem. Actually, a ‘problem’ and a couple of ‘opportunities’...
Long story short, we’ve learned a lot over the last twelve months, but we need to reframe our work, cut out a layer. So we’re going to close the Off the Leash Twitter and Instagram accounts, and shut down the website. We’re moving to Substack. From the end of this month we’ll be just on Substack and we’ll be promoting it via our personal social media accounts.
We’re not completely throwing the OTL baby out with the bathwater though. We’re keeping the ‘off the leash’ name for the new platform because it perfectly sums up the attitude we want to bring to our work, but from now on, everything goes via Substack
Off the Leash Podcasts is dead, but long live Off the Leash.
- Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer on Substack https://offtheleash.substack.com/
A conversation between Charlie Moores and Duncan McNair, founder of Save the Asian Elephants or STAE.
Duncan is a prominent corporate litigation lawyer and was Chair of the highly-influential 2013 McNair Inquiry and Report which was commissioned by the RSPCA and called for greater commitment to higher welfare standards for farmed animals. Its recommendations were unanimously approved by the Council of Trustees of the RSPCA the month after the Report’s publication and resulted in the RSPCA Assured Scheme.
More recently Duncan has been regularly invited to address All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Animal Welfare and on Endangered Species regarding the plight of Asian elephants In 2016 he addressed a large audience at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on STAE’s policies, a presentation described by the Chairman as “dramatic and shocking.”
In 2017 Duncan was part of a small, key group representing 220 charities and MPs in presenting a letter to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street demanding abolition of the UK ivory trade. A proposed ban was announced the same year. In 2018, Duncan and STAE launched a petition on Change.org to End the Cruel Treatment of Elephants in India which now has over 1 million signatures and is still being signed today…
All of which might lead to us thinking that the remaining populations of Asian Elephants are now safe, ivory imports are banned, and the cruel ‘breaking’ of these highly intelligent and gentle animals so that tourists can ride them has ended…
The world doesn’t work in such a linear fashion unfortunately, and Asian elephants continue to decline – they are classified as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), have declined by an estimated 50 per cent over the past 75 years, and the remaining 20,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants left in the wild are restricted to just 15% of their original range.
Ivory and elephant welfare are very different issues of course, but again it’s not particularly good news. Here in the UK, the Ivory Bill which received Royal Assent back in 2018 has been held up numerous times and doesn’t come into force until June this year and the government has now paused progress of its much-lauded Animals Abroad Bill which was intended to include both bans on the trade in hunting trophies that threaten the conservation status of species abroadAND the domestic sale and advertising of experiences overseas like elephant rides. Why paused? Well, while the Bill had reached the inquiry stage where it would be scrutinised, the Inquiry Committee has decided that scrutiny cannot continue until the Bill has been published by the Government and the Government are not able to confirm a date of publication. In other words, at the moment it is deadlocked and going nowhere…
Which is incredibly frustrating for STAE, and led to Duncan and a coalition of campaigners including Claire Bass of HSI and Ian Redmond publishing a letter in The Guardian on the 1st of April which began “We are concerned by reports of the government abandoning its manifesto commitments to an Animals Abroad Bill”.
- Save the Asian Elephants Website and Twitter feed
- Gov.uk Animals Abroad Bill
- The Guardian (Letters) The British government must lead the way on animal welfare (01 April 22)
- Change.org End the Cruel Treatment of Elephants in India
- Lonely Planet
In this episode of The Off the Leash Podcast, Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer look at Dorset Police’s baffling and frankly bizarre decision to halt an investigation into the poisoning of a White-tailed Eagle found dead on a Dorset shooting estate; at an FOI request from Wiltshire Hunt Sabs that found that an astonishing 53 police officers chaperoned the notorious Avon Vale Hunt at one meet in Wiltshire in early March but still couldn’t see assaults on sabs taking place in front of them; and we will look briefly at a rather clever suggestion put forward by Wild Justice about the shooting of Woodcocks. We also name our Heroes and Villains (which once again features the divisive and unrepresentative Countryside Alliance)
But we begin with a look at newly-released figures from Defra which state that at least 33,687 badgers were slaughtered in 2021 as part of its ongoing campaign to appease the dairy industry; petition updates; and Dominic's thoughts on how shifting government priorities might see the Animals Abroad Bill shelved...
- Badger Trust | Badger Trust outraged as latest cull figures reveal record proportion killed by inhumane shooting
- Off the Leash | Interview #23 Tom Langton and Dr Mark Jones | Badger Culling Research
- The Guardian | Cabinet row as plan to ban fur and foie gras trade scrapped by PM
- Raptor Persecution UK | Poisoned eagle in Dorset had 7 x lethal dose rodenticide in its liver
- Wild Mammal Persecution UK | The Rule of Law
- Off the Leash | Interview# 22 Wiltshire Hunt Sabs March 2022
- Wiltshire Hunt Sabs FOI Tweet
- Wild Justice | We ask for changes to the Woodcock shooting season
- Off the Leash | Shortcast #59 Charlie Moores Ban the Shooting of Woodcocks
- The National | North Wales PCC accused of ‘prejudice’ over hunting review
“Badger culling is not going to work as a method of controlling disease in cattle and should be abandoned immediately and permanently.” Dr Mark Jones., Born Free Foundation
Charlie Moores in conversation with Tom Langton, a conservation ecologist with involvement in High Court judicial review of decisions surrounding badger culling policy in England, and veterinarian Dr Mark Jones, Head of Policy at Born Free.
In mid-March, open-access research by Tom, Mark, and Dr Iain McGill - a veterinarian and Director of the Prion Group – was published in Vet Record, a peer-reviewed medical journal in the field of veterinary medicine.
Titled “Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020”, the research found that “Analyses based on Defra published data using a variety of statistical methodologies did not suggest that badger culling affected herd bTB incidence or prevalence over the study period. In 9 of 10 counties, bTB incidence peaked and began to fall before badger culling commenced.” and concluded that “This examination of government data obtained over a wide area and a long time period failed to identify a meaningful effect of badger culling on bTB in English cattle herds.”
In other words, bovine TB was already starting to fall before the government-sanctioned slaughter of a protected species had begun, and that the deaths of more than 140,000 badgers has had little effect on how much bovine TB is in England’s dairy herds.
- “Analysis of the impact of badger culling on bovine tuberculosis in cattle in the high-risk area of England, 2009–2020 Vet Record Volume 190, Issue 6 (open access research)
- Born Free Foundation Website and Facebook page
- Born Free Foundation Twitter feed
- Born Free Foundation Badger Culling
- Badger Trust New scientific study reveals that badger culling has had no effect in reducing bovine TB in cattle (18 March 22)
- The Badger Crowd on Twitter
An uplifting and beautifully told shortcast about snares by Animals Asia's Ryan Marcel Sucaet - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Ryan Marcel Sucaet is the Bear & Vet Team Director at the Chengdu Bear Rescue Centre.
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Animal Aid Website and Twitter feed
- Animals Asia Website and Twitter feed
- Animals Asia Bear Sanctuaries
- Animals Asia Three-legged bear released into the wild spotted alive and well on camera (09 Jan 2018)
- Off the Leash Interview #17 Jill Robinson | Animals Asia
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast by Edith from Staffordshire Wounded Badger Patrol, a group of volunteers who work to protect badgers in the Staffordshire badger cull zone.
"It's definitely worth doing - it's satisfying to know that we're out there protecting badgers."
- Wounded Badger Patrol - Staffordshire Facebook page
- Wounded Badger Patrol - Staffordshire Instagram feed
- Wounded Badger Patrol - Staffordshire Twitter feed
- Biddulph News A night with Staffordshire's wounded badger patrol (23 Sept 21)
A conversation between Charlie Moores and Anne, a spokesperson for the Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs.
Anne and Charlie have spoken before, in late December, shortly after a well-publicised attack on hunt protestors by followers of the notorious Avon Vale Hunt at their Boxing Day meet in the Wiltshire village of Lacock (link below).
This time they’re talking in late March, so towards the end of the so-called fox hunting season. It’s been a tumultuous period for the various Wiltshire hunt packs and for the sabs and monitors who track their movements and are working to stop wildlife crimes taking place in the Wiltshire countryside.
While the Avon Vale - and their support staff and protective shield of vehicles from Wiltshire Police - has now packed up until the fox cub hunting season starts in the autumn, the past six months have removed any doubt at all that illegal foxhunting is routine in Wiltshire – taking place right under the noses of local police, as well as under the noses of local Conservative MPs James Gray and Michelle Donelan, and the Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Wilkinson who either haven’t commented, commented that hunting is a legal activity, or suggested that had hunt sabs not been at Lacock at Boxing Day they would have been at home making bombs…
And stepping into all of this – standing between the illegal hunts and our wildlife - are the Wiltshire Hunt Sabs. They affiliated with the HSA in their current form in time for the 2021 season – so how do they look back on their first full year of operation, and what are their plans for tackling this shameful situation in the years ahead…
- Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs Twitter feed
- Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs Facebook page
- Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs Tip-off Line - 07562 628 187
- Donate to Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs via PayPal
- Off the Leash Interview #14 Wiltshire Hunt Sabs
- Off the Leash Shortcast #76 Charlie Moores | The Avon Vale Hunt and a response to Wiltshire's PCC
A short conversation between Off the Leash's Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer on Dominic's government petition calling on the UK to "Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end" which of course was launched after the Faroese slaughtered an almost unbelievable 1428 Atlantic White-sided Dolphins on the 12th of September last year.
After a huge push in the last week or so the petition has now reached 100,000 signatures, which given the understandable focus on Ukraine was a massive achievement ...
- Dominic Dyer Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- AnimalAid Petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife
- PETA Petition Replace the real bearskins used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps with faux fur
- Off the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #48 OTL | Faroes Update October
Charlie Moores talks with the founder of Keep the Ban, Rob Pownall. Launched in 2015 but ticking over until some eighteen months ago, a change in strategy, a new website, and a massively ramped up social media presence saw Keep the Ban launch numerous anti-hunt campaigns and develop investigative work alongside the renowned Hunt Investigation Team (or HIT).
As Rob explains he has some extremely interesting ideas on where he thinks Keep the Ban should go next, plans for expanding on the work he is doing already, and developing partnerships (including perhaps with Off the Leash).
Before we get to that though, Keep the Ban says on its website that “It is beyond clear that hunts are not ‘trail hunting’ as they claim. Farmers and landowners are complicit in the supply of foxes for the purpose of hunting. Foxes are still being hunted across the country on a huge scale.”
Indeed they are, and on January 5th 2022 Keep The Ban supported the Hunt Investigation Team with their latest undercover investigation, which saw the Vale of White Horse Hunt filmed deliberately and intentionally hunting a fox.
- Keep the Ban Website
- Keep the Ban Vale of White Horse Hunt investigation
- Keep the Ban Twitter feed
- Hunt Investigation Team Website and Twitter feed
Four days ago Off the Leash posted a short conversation between Charlie Moores and campaigner and Off the Leash colleague Dominic Dyer on what he'd been doing to make it easier for refugees fleeing Putin's war on Ukraine to come into the UK with their companion animals. We were very critical of the UK government on that occasion, but Dominic is back with - thankfully - better news...
- Shortcast #77 Dominic Dyer | Ukranian Refugees and Companion Animals
- The Off the Leash Podcast 3.3 Ukraine
" Why would you choose cruelty when you don’t have to...I don’t care what society says, I’m not participating in that."
The first part of a short series of podcasts with award-winning author and animal rights campaigner Linda Newbery talking about her recently published guide to compassionate living, ‘This Book is Cruelty-free – Animals and Us’. Written for everyone who cares ‘about our planet, our animals, and about living a better life’, This Book is Cruelty-free says in its introduction, “the decisions we make every day of our lives – what we buy, eat, use and discard – have an impact on the environment and animal life. We can choose to support cruelty and waste, or we can choose kindness and responsibility.”
In this podcast Charlie Moores talks with Linda about her motivation to write This Book is Cruelty-free, setting the scene for forthcoming episodes based on chapters from the book: Spend Kindly, What’s On Your Plate, What a Waste, Animals at Home, Protect and Protest.
NB: Off the Leash contacted Linda after buying and enjoying This Book is Cruelty-Free. We paid for it ourselves, no payments have been asked for or received for this series of podcasts, and Off the Leash has no financial interest in the book or anything connected with it.
- Linda Newbery Website and Twitter feed
- Pavilion Books This Book is Cruelty-free - Animals and Us
A short conversation between Charlie Moores and campaigner Dominic Dyer on what he's been doing to make it easier for refugees fleeing Putin's war on Ukraine to come into the UK with their companion animals. As we discuss, Ukraine is not rabies-free, but over a week ago the Vet Times wrote that "Officials in Romania, Poland and Hungary have made exceptions to peacetime restrictions on pets crossing borders as thousands, including many with animals, flee war-torn Ukraine". In Hungary, in order to ensure a smooth entry, the national chief veterinarian has ordered the completion of a simplified registration form.
Why are we so slow to help and what can we do about it?
- Vet Times Ukraine’s EU neighbours waive pet restrictions amid war exodus (28 Feb 2022)
- The Off the Leash Podcast 3.3 Ukraine
In this episode of The Off the Leash Podcast, Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss burnout and campaigning in a world that is both full of relentless need and is falling apart in front of us. As we say, "we’re not mental health professionals, we can’t solve anyone’s problems, but we thought that perhaps outlining our own experiences, looking at what encourages and keeps us going, might just help someone who is struggling too...".
We also look at the newly introduced Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill, which aims to tighten up loopholes left over from the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 (it almost - but not quite - succeeds). We ask how on earth mega-retailer Tesco can sanction netting to stop red-listed House Martins nesting on its North Berwick store. And we give a word of thanks to the Buff-breasted Bumblebee, that gentle giant (relatively speaking of course) of early spring.
#WeStandWithUkraine
- Off the Leash Podcasts 3.3 Ukraine
- War on Wildlife Project Solastalgia – a quiet mourning
- OneKind Animal charity welcomes Bill that could finally ban the ‘sport’ of fox hunting, 20 years on
- Scottish Government The Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill
- RSPB House Martin Added to Red List
- Change.org Stop the netting preventing House Martin’s nesting at North Berwick Tesco
- Bumblebee Conservation Trust Buff-tailed Bumblebee
A conversation between Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer about Ukraine and Russia's war. How did we get to this disaster and what might we have learned about our humanity and our compassion for each other?
We discussed at length whether we should record this - is the world waiting for an Off the Leash statement on Ukraine? Of course not. Will a podcast make any difference? Of course not - but we wanted to show our support for the people of Ukraine anyway, so here we are...
WeStandWithUkraine
- Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal
- Network for Animals Ukraine Emergency Appeal
A podcast by Charlie Moores looking in detail at a response he received to an email sent to Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner (or PCC ) Philip Wilkinson OBE questioning the use of police resources to chaperone the Avon Vale Hunt at their meet in north Wiltshire on the 19th of February, the day after Storm Eunice caused extensive damage to parts of the county.
Information on how many police were present is taken from multiple social media accounts belonging to hunt sabs and monitor groups (especially Wiltshire Hunt Sabs), a local village Facebook group, some personal communications he had the next day, and what Charlie witnessed himself.
Why produce this podcast? Charlie has never hidden the fact that he is totally opposed to fox hunting. He says so on social media and it’s a recurring theme in Off the Leash podcasts. Stopping hunting is – for him – entirely about protecting wildlife from illegality. The Avon Vale Hunt is very local to Charlie, and he finds the sights and sounds of them hunting, chilling.
More to the point though, is that Mr Wilkinson’s emailed response seems to Charlie to almost perfectly demonstrate how the ‘trail hunting clause’ in the Hunting Act is being used as a cover by fox hunts to allow illegal foxhunting outlines clearly how some authorities view and respond to sabs and monitors, and encapsulates why the debate around fox hunting is so confused.
- Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Philip Wilkinson OBE
- War on Wildlife Project Jonathon Seed | Wiltshire PCC candidate says only trolls talk about hunting
- Wiltshire Council Website Update On Storm Eunice Red Warning
- IFAW Trail of Lies Report
- Wiltshire Council Website Precept Consultation Final Results
- Charlie Moores on Twitter Local Residents are Boiling Mad
- Devon County Sabs Facebook Post Avon Vale 19.2.22
- Wild Mammal Persecution UK Hunts Now Being Treated as OCGs?
Heroes and Villains, a new series of podcasts from Off the Leash with Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer. Each week we will discuss a Hero and a Villain each.
In this episode (recorded 18 Feb 2022) we boo Emma Hopkins, UK Ambassador to Denmark, and gun dog trainer Ian Openshaw. And we cheer conservationist Roy Dennis, and both the editor of the Jerusalem Post and its journalist Barry Davies.
What do you think of our choices? Would you have chosen differently? Let us know...
A short interview with Charlie Moores talking with campaigner and award-winning author Linda Newbery, whose book “This Book is Cruelty-Free – Animals and Us” which looks at the way our daily choices affect the lives of animals was published in July last year (and Off the Leash has an exciting announcement around that later in this interview). First though, at the end of January this year we posted a shortcast by Summer, from the campaign group Feed our Future, which aims to address climate emergency and animal exploitation issues starting with the food on our school plates. Feed our Future is working with councils to encourage the switch from emission heavy foods to plant-based ones.
Linda heard that shortcast and mentioned to Charlie that she had been involved in a Feed our Future campaign in Oxfordshire, where she lives, and that Oxfordshire County Council had passed a motion in December that would see vegan-only food being served at council events, and school's being encouraged to serve a vegan menu 'at least twice a week'. The motion had been tabled by Green Party Councillor, Ian Middleton, in the hope that the council would 'recognise that meat and dairy' is a 'significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and global deforestation'.
That motion had – somewhat depressingly but predictably – caused quite a ruckus, yet, as Charlie said to Linda when they began chatting earlier today, it all sounded fair and sensible to him...
- Linda Newbery “This Book is Cruelty-Free – Animals and Us” (Pavilion, July 2021)
- Off the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #64 Linda Newbery | Ban Snares
- Off the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #72 Summer | Feed our Future
- Feed our Future Website feedourfuture.co.uk/
- Feed our Future Facebook page and Twitter feed
In this episode of The Off the Leash Podcast, Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss the previously fairly unknown Conservative MP Chris Loder after the idiotic tweet he posted after learning that two White-tailed Eagles from the Isle of Wight reintroduction project had been found dead in 'suspicious circumstances' by investigatorswhich said that he didn't want Eagles in Dorset and that he didn't want the police investigating what happened to them; the idiotic footballer Kurt Zouma and his idiotic brother for posting a video of him abusing his cat on social media; the repulsive vivisection industry and the Animal Welfare Act; what links fox hunting and organised crime gangs; a couple of ongoing petitions; and we name our Heroes and Villians - but we begin with something that has again been keeping Dominic very busy...the political fallout from Operation Ark.
- Off the Leash Podcasts Shortcast #28 Dominic Dyer | Rescue the Animal Rescuers
- The Off the Leash Podcast 2.5 (OperationArk)
- Chris Loder MP Tweet "Dorset is not the place for eagles to be reintroduced"
- Off the Leash Podcasts Live #08 | Voices against Vivisection outside ParliamentOff the Leash Podcasts Live #03 | #FreetheMBRBeagles Protest Home Office
- Off the Leash Podcasts Live #07 | Voices from Camp Beagle
- Camp Beagle Website
- Camp Beagle Facebook page and Twitter Feed
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 09 May 22)
- Government Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end (Deadline 21 March 22)
- Peta Petition Replace the real bearskins used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps with faux fur (Deadline 06 July 22)
Live recordings made at a protest outside the Houses of Parliament on the 7th of February 2022.
The protest took place (to a background of thunderous and emotionally-charged chants from the tireless Sol and Helen of Camp Beagle) before a debate in the Commons, triggered by a petition asking for laboratory animals to be included in the Animal Welfare Act which gathered over 100k signatures before it closed in January.
Vivisection, animal testing, confining animals to laboratories and experimenting on them is nothing new of course. Protests have been going on for decades. Perhaps the most visible protest at the moment though is the campaign targeting Marshall Bio Resources which supply beagle puppies for experimentation from the awful MBR Acres puppy mill near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. The #FreetheMBR Beagles campaign and Camp Beagle which is set up outside the gates of MBR Acres have put the spotlight on breeding a sweet-natured, curious, and trusting breed of dog for use in a laboratory.
Charlie visited the Camp and recorded activists there in November last year, and that explains why for this recording he gravitated towards - in particular - Polly, one of the founders of Camp Beagle and Sammi, one of the Camp Beagle stalwarts he spoke with on that previous visit. Our apologies if we've inadvertently put the focus on just one element of the protests against vivisection - Off the Leash would be very happy to make up shortfalls with more shortcasts or interviews if anyone involved would like to get in touch.
- Camp Beagle Website
- Camp Beagle Facebook page and Twitter Feed
- Free the MBR Beagles Facebook page and Twitter feed
- FLOE (For Life On Earth) Website and Twitter feed
- Scarlett, Beagle Ambassador for FLOE Twitter feed
- Stay Close Clothing Website
- Government website Animal Welfare Act
- PETA "Experiments on Animals Fail 90% of the Time. Why Are They Still Done?"
- Off the Leash Podcasts | Live #07 Voices from Camp Beagle
- Off the Leash Podcasts | Live #03 #FreetheMBRBeagles Protest Home Office
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast written and recorded by Luke, a member of the Northants Hunt Sabs. Luke discusses the work the group does sabbing the notorious Cottesmore Hunt, which hunts mainly in Rutland, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, the aggression of so-called hunt stewards hired by the Cottesmore, and pro-hunt bias by Leicestershire Police.
- Northants Hunt Sabs Facebook page, Instagram feed, and Twitter feed
- Donate to the Northants Hunt Sabs at ko-fi.com
Charlie Moores in conversation with vegan activist and lifelong biophiliac Gina Bates of the Vegan Land Movement. Charlie met up with Gina, whose Twitter handle @hilltopgina reflects the last 17 years spent in a remote area of Sutherland, living very simply without running water and miles from all other amenities and people, at a rather breezy location in the Somerset Levels where the Vegan Land Movement recently bought almost seven acres of former dairy grazing land which they intend - to quote from their website - to "give back to the earth and endangered species in perpetuity".
Set up as a Community Interest Company or CIC, the Vegan Land Movement intends to repeat the purchase across the UK - which is both inspiring and (given how hard it is to raise funds at the moment) bold. So what motivates Gina, how does she think the organisation can grow and be effective, and why did she not want me to say exactly where in Somerset we were talking...
- Vegan Land Movement Website and Twitter Feed
- Gina Bates Twitter feed
- Sara Elgonquin (VLM Director) Twitter feed
A shortcast by Wild Moors' Luke Steele about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Luke is the Executive Director of Wild Moors, which works with communities, governments and companies to unlock moorland from grouse shooting for the restoration of wildlife and habitats - and of course to unlock moorlands from snares...
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Wild Moors Website and Twitter feed
A shortcast by Iain Green about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Iain Green is a nature photographer, author & founder of award-winning Wildlife Wonder and Director of Animal Aid
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Animal Aid Website and Twitter feed
- Wildlife Wonder website
A shortcast from the campaign group Feed our Future which aims to address climate emergency and animal exploitation issues starting with the food on our school plates. Feed our Future is working with councils to encourage the switch from emission heavy foods to plant-based ones. They are, they say helping the next generation of young people learn to eat sustainably.
- Feed our Future Website feedourfuture.co.uk/
- Feed our Future Facebook page and Twitter feed
A conversation with the founder and CEO of Animals Asia, the world’s leading expert on the bear bile industry, a pioneer of animal welfare in Asia, and a big picture thinker admired around the world for her approach and leadership - no, not a conversation with a group of renowned conservationists and activists, a conversation with just one remarkable woman: Jill Robinson MBE, a globally renowned advocate for animals, whose work is guided by the mantra 'Kindness in Action'.
Charlie Moores talks with Jill about 2021 - 'an incredible year' for Animals Asia according to Jill, teamwork and moving 101 rescued bears across China, nearing the end of bear farming in Vietnam, and the Animals Asia campaign 'The Only Cure is Kindness' which underpins so much of the organisations thinking and work.
- Animals Asia Website
- Animals Asia Twitter and Facebook feeds
- The Only Cure is Kindness Donation page (Animals Asia)
- Jill Robinson article on Dare to be Fabulous (undated)
A shortcast by Jane Smith AWP about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Writer and campaigner Jane Smith, Deputy Leader of the Animal Welfare Party (which believes in a better future for people, animals and the environment), and the UK's first-ever elected animal rights representative.
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Animal Welfare Party Website
- Jane Smith AWP Twitter feed
A shortcast about snares - part of our series supporting Animal Aid’s petition to ban free-running snares.
This recording is from Rob Pownall, the founder of the increasingly influential campaign group Keep the Ban which works to end the hunting of wildlife in the name of sport.
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Keep the Ban Website and Twitter feed
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast by Hannah from the campaign group EndPrim8abuse. Hannah has been working for two years and spent countless hours trying to get YouTube to take responsibility and take down deeply disturbing videos showing the abuse of very young monkeys.
With her colleague Sue, Hannah has put in literally thousands of complaints and emails to YouTube, and has contacted organisations and charities all over the world - but the videos are still online, and both YouTube and the content creators are earning ad revenue from animal abuse.
This is a very informative, powerful and emotional shortcast. It is uncomfortable listening but it is not graphic. Hannah has intentionally left out the more harrowing details she's uncovered in the hope that more people will feel able to listen to it and help her and her supporters #EndtheTrend.
- EndPrim8Abuse on Twitter and on Facebook
- Please share using #EndTheTrend
In this episode of The Off the Leash Podcast, Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss a mix of politics, animal rights, and institutional bias. What might happen to the government's legislative animal welfare agenda if Boris Johnson is replaced as Prime Minister, for example, and are government petitions worth signing (the answer is 'Yes'). We look at why hare coursing is discussed in Parliament but not hare hunting (both are illegal after all(, and read out a very accurate statement by the campaign group Action Against Hare Hunting which nails the reason brilliantly. We discuss a decision by Cornwall Council to continue allowing so-called 'Trail hunting' on its land and look at the Code of Conduct that should guide elected councillors. In the light of so much information emerging on the clear bias of some police officers towards hunts, is it right that the Chair of the College of Policing should also be the Chair of the pro-hunting lobby group the Countryside Alliance? We ask why Glue Traps are still available when they're obviously cruel. And we name our Heroes and Villains (once again the loathsome Safari Club International come on for a slating).
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 09 May 22)
- Government Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end (Deadline 21 march 22)
- Peta Petition Replace the real bearskins used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps with faux fur (Deadline 06 July 22)
- Action Against Hare Hunting Twitter feed and Facebook page
- Hunt Saboteurs Association Hare Hunting Packs
- Interview #15 South London Hunt Sabs | Sabbing 2.0
- Interview #14 Wiltshire Hunt Sabs
- Falmouth Packet Debate on trail hunting in Cornwall at council: what happened (19 Jan 22)
- Local Government Association Model Councillor Code of Conduct 2020
- Countryside Alliance blog Nick Herbert MP is new Alliance Chairman (18 Oct 19)
- Government website Nick Herbert appointed Chair of College of Policing (14 Jan 21)
- OneKind Scottish Government bans glue traps (21 Jan 22)
A shortcast by Paul Tillsley about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use free-running snares illegal.
"...the badger was gone, as was the snare...all that was left was a pool of blood and some lumps of flesh"
Paul is a hugely experienced investigator and Head of Conservation Education for the League Against Cruel Sports. He lives on Exmoor surrounded by commercial pheasant shoots and sees wildlife persecution - including snaring - on an almost daily basis...
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- League Against Cruel Sports Website and Twitter feed
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast by Kwesia, aka City Girl in Nature, a young woman from Deptford in South London who after a trip to the Amazon was inspired to work with young people in her community, some of whom have never had the opportunity to experience anything other than poverty and hardship.
- Website citygirlinnature.com
- Linktree linktr.ee/citygirlinnature
- Twitter twitter.com/citygirlnature
- YouTube City Girl in Nature
- Instagram instagram.com/citygirlinnature/
A shortcast by activist Sue Bliss about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use free-running snares illegal
- Animal Aid petitionMake the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Sue Bliss Twitter feed
Off the Leash's Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss the brutal crackdown on street dogs in Turkey - and just to be clear at NO stage do we go into graphic or upsetting detail.
Street dogs and cats have always been a part of life in Turkey's cities. Mark Twain wrote in 1867 that “The dogs sleep in the streets, all over the city. …They would not move, though the Sultan himself passed by,” and filmmaker Elizabeth Lo, whose documentary “Stray” had its streaming release in early 2021, said she was struck by “seeing dogs roaming around freely, living life on their own terms, in this very developed city,” and by the relationship she observed between them and Istanbul’s human residents.
Istanbul is home to some 400,000 to 600,000 stray dogs and cats, according to Ahmet Atalık who oversees veterinary services for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. There has long been a live and let live attitude to street dogs in Turkey, so what has changed so that they are now being persecuted?
- DuvaR.english Animal rights defenders fear for dogs' lives after Erdoğan targets stray dogs (26 Dec 2021)
- The Independent Turkey’s Erdogan shows bark and bite by targeting stray dogs in culture war (29 Dec 2021)
A shortcast by author and campaigner Linda Newbery about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Linda has published numerous novels and short stories, but her latest book is non-fiction, drawing on years of animal welfare campaigning. Titled 'This Book is Cruelty Free: Animals and Us' it's a guide to compassionate living, aimed at age roughly 12+ but with plenty of interest for adults too.
- Animal Aid petitionMake the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Linda Newbery Website and Twitter feed
- Pavilion Books - This Book is Cruelty Free: Animals and Us
An interview with award-winning campaigner Sarah Corbett, the founder of the Craftivist Collective, an inclusive group of people committed to using craft to help themselves and encourage others to be the positive change they wish to see in the world. Sarah's deeply-thoughtful campaign work is a beguiling mix of activism and philosophy or 'way of life' - fulfilling a need for a different form of activism, particularly relevant for any of us that feel permanently on the brink of frustrated burnout. As she asks. "If we want our world to be more beautiful, kind and fair, can we make our activism be more beautiful, kind and fair? If there’s time for the loud, there’s also time for the quiet. If there’s time for the fast, there’s also a need for the slow. In everyone’s heart is a desire to change things for the better – it is essential that there is an activists toolkit that is as diverse as humanity."
Over the summer Sarah launched a new project centred on climate change, the Canary Craftivists, which we'll be looking at in more depth later on in the conversation, but I began by quoting back to her a paragraph on the back of the beautiful book - or manual (and more of that latter too) - that she has produced from that campaign which asks “are you worried about global warming and anxious about taking part in large or loud forms of activism? If you’re more of an eco-worrier than eco-warrior then this manual is for you."
- Craftivist Collective Website
- Craftivist Collective on Instagram, on Facebook, and on Twitter
- To sponsor Sarah please go to craftivist-collective.com/adopt-a-craftivist
A shortcast by author and campaigner Bob Berzins about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
Bob lives on the edge of the Peak District National park, an area blighted by wildlife crime and snares. He’s worked with activists and wildlife charities, and spoken to police officers and crime commissioners in an effort to improve the plight of wildlife in the Park. He has also trained and worked as a counsellor which has helped him bring psychological depth to his excellent first novel ‘Snared’, a few pages of which Bob reads at the end of this recording.
- Animal Aid petitionMake the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife (Deadline 9th May 2022)
- Bob Berzins Website and Twitter feed
- Book Review Bob Berzins | Snared (War on Wildlife Project, June 2020)
- IDAS Shop Snared Audiobook
A shortcast by Charlie Moores about snares - part of Off the Leash's series of shortcasts supporting Animal Aid’s petition to make the use of free-running snares illegal.
"If you’re a certain age (and I am) you may remember how snares were often depicted as homemade devices, something a poacher in a TV programme might make from a bit of string to catch a rabbit for his dinner perhaps We never saw how the animal was killed once it had been snared of course – that might have upset us as we sat down to eat a lamb’s leg or a chicken’s breast muscles – but snares themselves seemed relatively ‘harmless’, a bit ad hoc, something that most of us probably assumed disappeared along with black and white televisions, panda cars, red telephone boxes, and the pick and mix counter at Woolworths.
But snares haven’t disappeared. Far from it. They are actually being used on an industrial scale. They’re probably being used in a field or a wood near you right now...
And of course they’re not made from plant fibres and hazel twigs anymore – they’re made from thin steel wire. Staved to the ground. Set very deliberately along runs or around stink pits, the stench of rotting flesh from previously snared animals drawing more animals to more snares. They’re cheap to buy, easy to use, light to carry, and quickly replaced if you can’t quite remember where you left them. They’re basically a simple, low-skilled way to kill or maim or injure wildlife.
And having said all of that, bizarrely, here in the UK anyway, they’re legal to use. "
- Animal Aid petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife(Deadline 9th May 2022)
TW: NO graphic details but very occasional use of strong language.
Charlie Moores talks with two exceptionally inspirational animal rights activists, Jake and Saffron from South London Hunt Sabs - a group that just a year after it was launched seems to be all over social media and, in the well-worn cliche, punching far above its weight.
The discussion took place just off the M25 in the car park of a well-known coffee company, and it quickly became obvious that these two individuals are not only eloquent and highly committed but balance and bounce off each other really well. The interview takes in hunts, animal culls, biased policing, and the behaviour of hunt followers but the answer to Charlie's first question asking how the group's message had spread so far in such a short time, set the tone for what was an enjoyable and uplifting conversation....
- South London Hunt Sabs Facebook page and Twitter feed
A shortcast by Off the Leash's Charlie Moores about General Licences and the shooting industry.
The recent furore on social media about Defra's revisions of the General Licence system to give shooting yet more provisions to make it easy to make profits from killing birds for fun seems to have caught a number of people by surprise. But of course, General licences have been around for decades.
The General Licence system is complex, but it's essentially a way for individuals from certain industries (almost entirely agriculture and shooting) to get ‘permission’ from the government to step around the laws that protect birds in England. Nominally, all wild birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. You and I can’t simply go out and shoot or trap birds. We can't wander around with a gun killing them. It’s illegal - unless of course you and I claim that the birds we want to kill are ‘pests’ or causing us economic harm, in which case Defra will let you wave a virtual piece of paper around and off you go. Virtual? Yes, you don't even have to print a licence off. By definition, no one actually needs to even apply for a General Licence...
- Government website General Licences
- Wild Justice General licence confusion continues – Schrodinger’s Pheasant (04 Jan 22)
- Hunt Saboteurs Association Website and Twitter feed
- League Against Cruel Sports Website and Twitter feed
Charlie Moores talks with Anne, a spokesperson for the Wiltshire Hunt Saboteurs.
We're discussing fox hunting in Wiltshire and in particular the events that took place at a Boxing Day 'meet' of the notorious Avon Vale Hunt at Lacock, a village in north Wiltshire almost entirely owned by the National Trust. As recorded on numerous body cams and uploaded to social media. the meet erupted into violence when hunt followers attacked protestors.
In the aftermath of this violence, important questions are now being asked. Why, for instance, does the National Trust - one of the country's largest landowners which banned so-called trail hunting on its land in November this year - still allow meets to take place on its land? Just how closely connected are the Hunt and the police officers who were on duty in Lacock that day? What are we supposed to make of the 'responses' to their constituents being attacked from local MPs Michelle Donelan and James Gray? And what is it that keeps dedicated hunts sabs putting themselves on the front line...
- Wiltshire Hunt Sabs Twitter feed, Facebook page, and PayPal funding page
- Wiltshire Live Boxing Day hunt descends into violence amid protest in idyllic Wiltshire village
In this Off the Leash Podcast 2021 Year End Special, Dominic Dyer and Charlie Moores focus on the madness of foxhunting's Boxing Day 'meets' with reference to the disgraceful attacks by hunt followers on protestors in Lacock, a National Trust owned village in Wiltshire; the Faroes and the Grind; the use of Black Bear fur in military hats; and announce plans for an Operation Ark and Operation Magic Carpet New Year Special podcast. Sandwiched inside all of that is animal sentience, moorlands, and much more.
We also discuss a planned series of shortcasts on snares and snaring to support the recently re-launched Animal Aid petition to ban the use of free-running snares.
We can't really make an episode of The Off the Leash Podcast without our Heroes and Villains, and in this one we slam the fossil fuel industry, the pesticide industry, the shooting industry, foxhunting, and the so-called Countryside Alliance, and heap praise on everyone who helped get people (and animals) out of Afghanistan and the hunt sabs and monitors who put their bodies (and minds) on the line to protect wildlife and stop wildlife crime from taking place (heroes one and all).
Finally, we thank everyone who has supported us in our first year online, and look forward to 2022.
- Wiltshire Live Boxing Day hunt descends into violence amid protest in idyllic Wiltshire village
- Wiltshire Hunt Sabs Twitter feed and PayPal funding page
- PETA Stop Bear Slaughter: PETA Unveils Faux-Fur Queen’s Guard Cap
- Animal Aid page on snares
- Government petition Make the use of free-running snares illegal for trapping wildlife
- Government petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- Off the Leash podcast Interview #12 Crustacean Compassion | Decapod Sentience
- Unearthed Europe and the UK’s vast shipments of banned, bee-killing ‘neonics’
"it's not a case of what would you like or what's possible - it's what's needed."
Part Three of a podcast by Off the Leash's Charlie Moores made to support the Langholm Initiative, the award-winning community development trust for Eskdale, and a community buy out that is aiming to repurpose a former grouse moor owned by Buccleuch Estates into the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
Charlie explained more about the background to the buyout in the introduction to Part One and discussed the incredibly strong community in Langholm in Part Two: it is an absolutely fascinating and inspiring story that is centred around Eskdale and the tightly-knit community of Langholm, a burgh in Dumfries and Galloway just 20 miles north of Carlisle, and the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest men in the UK who owns a staggering 217,000 acres of moorland, farms and forestry - including Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley.
Back in May 2019, Buccleuch Estates announced a decision to sell 25,000 acres of Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley. Local interest in buying at least some of the land grew and the Langholm initiative launched a fundraising campaign on behalf of the community.
'The Impossible Dream' as it was termed initially, took off. In just six months the campaign attracted £3.8m in grants and funding, including a crowd funder which raised over £200,000 - and the community now legally owns 5,200 acres of land which includes upland moor, ancient woodland, meadows, peatlands and a river valley.
A second fundraiser has now been set up to buy an additional 5000 acres. The money has to be raised by May 2022 or the land could be put up for sale on the open market....and a chance to manage a whopping 10,000 acres could be lost. Would he like to come to Langholm, Charlie was asked, to make a podcast to help 'spread the word'? Would he ever...
In Part One, Charlie visited the reserve with Tarras Valley Estate Manager Jenny Barlow and Development Manager Angela Williams; in Part Two he spoke with Langholm residents, Margaret Pool, Chair of Langholm Initiative, and Mairi Telford-Jammeh, a member of the Langholm Executive, and in Part Three he is talking with Kevin Cumming, who in 2019 was working for the Langholm Initiative and managing the Wild Eskdale project which aimed to promote eco-tourism in the area as well as provide outdoor education for the local community.
For Charlie, Kevin was the 'face' of the buyout and it's likely that many of us were introduced to the details and purpose of the buyout through an articulate and thorough blog he wrote for Mark Avery's website in Dec 2019. Fortunately, Kevin happened to come into the Langholm Initiative office just as Charlie was finishing talking with Margaret and Mairi. He looked a little - er, weary (for a very good reason as he explains in the conversation) but immediately agreed to a chat before heading home. He is a remarkable individual - softly spoken with a core of steel if you like...
Charlie began the conversation by asking Kevin to both explain the links between the Langholm Initiative, Wild Eskdale, and the Tarras Valley nature reserve and to go back to the beginning when the opportunity to buy the land had first arisen...
- Langholm Initiative Website and Twitter feed
- Go Fund me Crowd Funder (Community Buyout 2)
- Tarras Valley Nature Reserve Twitter feed
- YouTube Tarras Valley Live Event (December 1st)
- Mark Avery Guest Blog | Langholm Moor Community Buyout by Kevin Cumming
Charlie Moores in conversation with Claire Howard, Executive Director of Crustacean Compassion, an organisation that works to raise public awareness of the sentience of decapod crustaceans; works with food businesses to implement changes to their practices; and puts pressure on the Government to make the necessary changes to the law.
In November the UK government released a report titled ‘Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans’, which concluded that these animals are sentient, can feel pain and should be protected in law.” On the back of that the government have proposed an amendment to the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, a new piece of legislation that is currently making its way through parliament. If it becomes law, for the first time ever cephalopods (like squid and octopus) and decapods (like crabs, lobsters, and shrimps), would be legally recognised as sentient beings alongside vertebrates.
Claire explains why Crustacean Compassion fought to have decapods recognised as sentient and how the legislation will set a precedent for how these fascinating animals should be treated.
- Crustacean Compassion Website
- Crustacean Compassion Facebook page and Twitter feed
- Crustacean Compassion Christmas Appeal
- Government website 'Lobsters, Octopus and Crabs recognised as sentient beings'
Part Two of a podcast we've made to support the Langholm Initiative, the award-winning community development trust for Eskdale, and a community buy out that is planning to turn a 'knackered old grouse moor' into the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
Off the Leash's Charlie Moores explained more about the background to the buyout in the introduction to Part One, but it is an absolutely fascinating and inspiring story that is centred around Eskdale and the tightly-knit community of Langholm, a burgh in Dumfries and Galloway just 20 miles north of Carlisle, and the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest men in the UK who owns a staggering 217,000 acres of moorland, farms and forestry - including Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley. Back in May 2019, Buccleuch Estates announced a decision to sell 25,000 acres of Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley. Local interest in buying at least some of the land grew and the Langholm initiative launched a fundraising campaign on behalf of the community.
'The impossible Dream' as it was termed initially, took off.
In just six months the campaign attracted £3.8m in grants and funding, including a crowd funder which raised over £200,000 - and the community now legally owns 5,200 acres of land which includes upland moor, ancient woodland, meadows, peatlands and a river valley - the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
A second fundraiser has now been set up to buy an additional 5000 acres. The money has to be raised by May 2022 or the land could be put up for sale on the open market....and a chance to manage a whopping 10000 acres could be lost. Would Charlie like to come to Langholm. he was asked, to make a podcast to help 'spread the word'? Would he ever...
in Part One he visited the reserve with Jenny Barlow and Angela Williams, in Part Two he's talking with two Langholm residents, Margaret Pool, Chair of Langholm Initiative, and Mairi Telford-Jammeh, a member of the Langholm Executive, to learn more about the history of Langholm, what Common Ridings are, and the sense of place that Langholm inspires...
Margaret and Mairi are obviously experienced interviewees as they didn't even wait for a question before launching into the most wonderful tales about swimming in the Tarras River, 'gurdling', and watching out for Border reivers...
As Charlie says in his introduction, he could have listened to them all day...
- Langholm Initiative Website and Twitter feed
- Go Fund me Crowd Funder (Community Buyout 2)
- Tarras Valley Nature Reserve Twitter feed
- YouTube Tarras Valley Live Event (December 1st)
- Off the Leash Podcasts Interview #10 Tarras Valley Part One
Off the Leash's Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer discuss the not unexpected news from Defra that testing has shown that Geronimo the Alpaca did not have Bovine TB - as a raft of people including Helen Macdonald (Geronimo's owner), vet Iain McGill, and of course Dominic said would be the case.
- The Independent Post mortem tests on Geronimo the alpaca fail to find source of TB (11 Dec 21)
- Off the Leash Podcasts Live #02 Various | Geronimo Defra Protest
Part One of a podcast Off the Leash's Charlie Moores has made to support the Langholm Initiative and a community buy out that is turning - to quote Raptor Persecution UK - a 'knackered old grouse moor' into the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
The buy out is a fascinating and inspiring story that is centred around Eskdale and Langholm (a burgh in Dumfries and Galloway just 20 miles north of Carlisle) and the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest men in the UK who owns a staggering 217,000 acres of moorland, farms and forestry - including Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley.
in May 2019, Buccleuch Estates announced a decision to sell 25,000 acres of Langholm Moor and the Tarras Valley. Community interest in buying at least some of the land grew (and we'll be discussing just how close the community here is in Part Two). The Langholm initiative launched a fundraising campaign on behalf of the community and 'The impossible Dream' as it was termed initially, took off.
The campaign grew quickly, attracting national interest and support from all over the world, and in just six months had attracted £3.8m in grants and funding, including a crowd funder which raised over £200,000.
The community now legally owns 5,200 acres of land which includes upland moor, ancient woodland, meadows, peatlands and a river valley which is all being developed into the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve.
A second fundraiser has now been set up to buy an additional 5000 acres. The money has to be raised by May 2022 or the land could be put up for sale on the open market, and the chance to manage a whopping 10,000 acres could be lost.
On December 7th - after watching a very instructive video on YouTube about the community buyout and the reserve, just two weeks after Storm Arwen battered Scotland and northern England ripping up trees and bringing down power lines, and on the very same day that Storm Barra battered Scotland (etc etc) Charlie found himself overlooking the Tarras Valley with Jenny Barlow, Estate manager of the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, and Angela Williams,Development Manager at the reserve, before a drive along the track that winds through the valley and out the other side...
- Langholm Initiative Website and Twitter feed
- Go Fund me Crowd Funder (Community Buyout 2)
- Tarras Valley Nature Reserve Twitter feed
- YouTube Tarras Valley Live Event (December 1st)
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast by Off the Leash's Charlie Moores about a government petition making its way around social media at the moment that aims to 'Ban the Shooting of Critically Endangered Woodcocks'. Its first paragraph says, to quote. “Numbers of this iconic bird have declined dramatically over the past 20 years, placing them on the RED (critically endangered) wildlife conservation status list.” There is a trend showing long-term decline of the British breeding population of Woodcocks, yet shooters still want to shoot them. Why? For fun...
- Please sign the petition, which you can find at Ban the Shooting of Critically Endangered Woodcock
EDIT: In January 2022 the Government (in the form of Defra) responded with a typically tone-deaf dismissal of the petition saying, " Recent population trends for woodcock are likely to be influenced by the extent and quality of habitat rather than shooting. There are no plans for a ban. " So, acknowledge that Woodcock are in decline, don't take a cautious approach and stop further declines caused by killing the remaining birds, shift the blame to habitat loss, and say to the powerful shooting lobby 'Carry on, lads'. No wonder our wildlife is in so much trouble...
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast by a supporter of Derbyshire Against The Cull, who was inspired to write this piece after attending a demonstration outside Haddon Hall on December the 4th when the Hall was putting on a family-friendly Christmas event. It includes the voices of two other supporters at the demonstration recorded on a mobile phone.
- Derbyshire Against The Cull Facebook page
- Derbyshire Against The Cull Twitter feed and the tweet about the rewording of Haddon Hall's website
- Derbyshire Against the Cull - Ko-fi donation page: ko-fi.com/derbyshireagainstthebadgercull
- Off the Leash Podcasts Interview #09 Derbyshire Against The Cull | Voices from the Cull Zone
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!A fascinating shortcast with environmental theorist Dr Matthew Adams in which he describes his research into Pavlov's Dogs, discovering that thousands of dogs (incuding pets) were stolen off the street and that the results of Pavlov's gruesome experiments are not as clear-cut as usually portrayed. Matthew also explains how he wants experimental animals to be seen as individuals and not the 'interchangeable automatons' so often depicted in scientific literature.
- Matthew Adams Anthropocene Psychology (Being Human in a More-than-Human World)
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast created from phone recordings captured by campaigner and activist Emily Lawrence at the protest in London today in support of whales and dolphins. The recordings include protest chants outside both the Danish and Japanese Embassies and a short statement from Off the Leash's Dominic Dyer.
- Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands
- Shortcast #43 Sea Shepherd UK | #StoptheGrind Demo
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
"Humans have made dogs one of the most unhealthy species on earth and we have a moral duty to fix it." A shortcast with trauma counsellor Annie Wilson about the 'What's in my Genes?' campaign which works to raise awareness of hereditary diseases in dogs and to establish a kitemark for dog breeders, which the campaign says must be licenced and regulated.
- Paws Against What's in my Genes?
- Paws Against Facebook page
Shortcasts are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast with Off the Leash's Dominic Dyer and Charlie Moores about the announcement today from the National Trust that they will no longer issue licences for so-called trail hunting on their land.
To quote from the NT's statement, Harry Bowell, Director of Land and Nature said: “The board of trustees has carefully considered this issue. Its decision to issue no further licences for trail hunting is based on a wide range of considerations. These include - but are not limited to - a loss of trust and confidence in the MFHA, which governs trail hunting, the vote by National Trust members at our recent AGM, the considerable resources needed to facilitate trail hunting and the reputational risk of this activity continuing on our land.”
- Statement from National Trust National Trust says it will no longer issue trail hunt licences
TW: very occasional strong language and upsetting themes
'Voices from Camp Beagle' is a podcast created from a series of recordings Off the Leash Podcasts made on November 20th 2021 at Camp Beagle, the protest camp set up outside puppy-breeding farm MBR Acres - and the day of a demonstration attended by several hundred people (and just a few days after singer and actor Will Young handcuffed himself to the gates of MBR Acres to support the Camp).
In this podcast you’ll hear from Camp residents and day visitors, you’ll hear incredibly poignant music being played alongside the MBR Acres facility, and you’ll hear dogs – many dogs – some of them companion animals outside MBR Acres, and some of them beagle puppies crying from inside the facility itself. It’s not always an easy listen - it’s occasionally quite graphic, though there is nothing gratuitous - and it is emotional: the word ‘heartbreaking’ is used many times.
Of course you have the option to simply switch off, to not listen, the choice is yours – but as heartbreaking as this all is, this is also a heartwarming story, a story of resilience and determination, of people just like you and me coming together to do extraordinary things for animals…
- Camp Beagle Website
- Camp Beagle Facebook page and Twitter Feed
- tcm.digital (Camp Beagle Videographer) Facebook page
- FLOE (For Life On Earth) Website and Twitter feed
- Stay Close Clothing Website
- Jessica Diamond (musician) Website
- Cambridgeshire Live Will Young joins Camp Beagle protest at Huntingdon beagle facility - recap
- Off the Leash Podcasts Live #03 #FreetheMBRBeagles Protest (outside the Home Office)
Welcome to the first half of a two-part recording made on November the 12th at the Manchester Art Gallery - and the inaugural Emily Williamson Festival.
The Festival was created by author and campaigner Tessa Boase and activist and event organiser Tina Lindsay to honour the memory of Emily Williamson, who in 1889, determined to stop the ‘murderous millinery’ of the plumage trade, founded an all-female group that just fifteen years later had become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the RSPB.
Tessa and Tina organised a fascinating discussion for the first evening of the festival, chaired by Zoologist and Wildlife TV Presenter Megan McCubbin, with a panel consisting of biologist, nature writer and campaigner Amy-Jane Beer; Beccy Speight, CEO of the RSPB, Juliet Vickery, CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology and President of the British Ornithologists Union, and the Chief Executive of BirdLife International Patricia Zurita.
In this first part of the recording, we hear from Tessa Boase herself who explains how she uncovered Emily Williamson’s forgotten history, before introducing behavioural scientist Professor Melissa Bateson – who has spent many years researching Starlings and is Emily Williamson’s great, great niece. Megan then takes over to talk about the representation of women in conservation, introducing the panel who in turn discuss what nature means to them and explaining the backstory to an object that each has brought along to the Festival…
Off the Leash Podcasts has been proud to support the Emily Williamson Festival, celebrating female voices in conservation and Emily's legacy, which goes to show that one voice - anyone's voice - can make a difference. The Festival website remains live of course, if you’d like to learn more please go to emilywilliamsonstatue.com/festival
Welcome to the first half of a two-part recording made on November the 12th at the Manchester Art Gallery - and the inaugural Emily Williamson Festival.
The Festival was created by author and campaigner Tessa Boase and activist and event organiser Tina Lindsay to honour the memory of Emily Williamson, who in 1889, determined to stop the ‘murderous millinery’ of the plumage trade, founded an all-female group that just fifteen years later had become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the RSPB.
In the first part of this recording we heard from Professor Melissa Bateson, Emily Williamson’s great, great niece, and a fascinating panel discussion chaired by zoologist and wildlife TV presenter Megan McCubbin, with a panel consisting of biologist, nature writer and campaigner Amy-Jane Beer; Beccy Speight, CEO of the RSPB, Juliet Vickery, CEO of the British Trust for Ornithology and President of the British Ornithologists Union, and the Chief Executive of BirdLife International Patricia Zurita.
In this second part of the recording, Megan begins by turning to the panel again to discuss what she calls ‘the elephant in the room’ – the fact that everyone on the stage is a woman...and later invites questions from the audience. Because the audience weren’t mic’d the three questions that were asked are inaudible but the answers given by the panel are far too important just to edit out – so at Tessa’s suggestion Off the Leash's Charlie Moores will be repeating those questions and editing them in...we end with an evocative reading by Amy-Jane Beer of an essay she wrote after an evening spent on the Knepp Wildland Estate listening to one of the most remarkable singers on the planet…
Off the Leash Podcasts has been proud to support the Emily Williamson Festival, celebrating female voices in conservation and Emily's legacy, which goes to show that one voice - anyone's voice - can make a difference. The Festival website remains live of course, if you’d like to learn more please go to emilywilliamsonstatue.com/festival
'Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!A shortcast with Off the Leash Podcasts' Dominic Dyer about the long-running insistence by the British Army of using animal fur to make the ceremonial bearskin hat used by British Foot Guards rather than use faux fur alternatives such as the one being offered to them by PETA and ECOPEL
- PETA UK Stop the Slaughter of Bears for the Queen’s Guard’s Caps
- PETA UK Stop Bear Slaughter: PETA Unveils Faux-Fur Queen’s Guard Cap
- Evening Standard (April 2012) The shocking video images which show the cruelty behind the Army's bearskin hats
In the twentieth episode of The Off the Leash Podcast, Dominic Dyer and Charlie Moores focus on COP 26, the 'Conference of the Parties' climate summit being held in Glasgow this year. Dominic chaired a ‘State of the Earth’ Question Time debate at COP which was organised by Born Free and the UK Cabinet Office, and we discuss whether the summit appears to be achieving lasting change and the feelings 'on the ground'. We also talk about some of the ideas discussed during the debate by a panel that included Will Travers OBE, Deborah Meaden, and Bella Lack: the role of storytelling in campaigning, for example, putting the climate and biodiversity crises on the school curriculum, peak travel, and the scaling-up of technology. Dominic also discusses why he thinks his Twitter account is being 'throttled' (his tweets are no longer appearing in many feeds including our own): lobbyists working to counter the campaigns set up against the slaughter of whales and dolphins on the Faroe Islands.
- ‘State of the Earth’ Question Time Panel Debate (YouTube)
- What is COP26 and what was agreed at Glasgow climate conference? BBC News
- Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- Dominic Dyer Twitter feed
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November.
In this shortcast we hear from artist and sculptural choreographer Hazel Reeves, who is currently the artist in residence at the world-renowned Knepp Wildland Estate in West Sussex where she is surrounded by a surging population of Nightingales and creates remarkable soundscapes filled with the sounds of nature, like the beautiful 'Sculptural Murmurings Project'.
- Hazel Reeves Website and Twitter feed
- Hazel Reeves Sculptural Murmurings Project
- Knepp Wildland Estate Website
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
'Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!(TW: very occasional - and entirely understandable - strong language)
A compelling shortcast by Puffer, a Manchester Hunt Saboteur and member of Lancashire Badger Group, who last April was almost killed when he stood up to a gang of badger baiters digging at a local sett he was monitoring. Puffer survived a horrendous attack (that fortunately he barely remembers, but which left him with deep head wounds, broken teeth, and extensive damage to a ripped ear) but as you'll hear his concern is not for himself but for the badgers. For him - and for Sabs and monitors up and down the country, heroes on the frontline against wildlife crime and animal abuse - first and foremost it's the badgers that need to survive the baiters - which is why, as he says at the end of this eloquent and inspirational recording, no matter what happens or what is thrown at him and other Sabs, "we're going nowhere - they will never deter us".
- Manchester Hunt Saboteurs Facebook page and Twitter feed
- Support Manchester Hunt Saboteurs on ko-fi.com
- North West Hunt Sabs Website
- Lancashire Badger Group Website
- Interview #09 Derbyshire Against The Cull | Voices from the Cull Zone
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November.In this shortcast, Chloe Jeffries from Climate Emergency Manchester tells us about how Emily's legacy continues in the work the group does locally to tackle the climate crisis.
She discusses how different skills can be valuable in campaigning and activism, and talks about the group's Active Citizenship Toolkit which breaks down how to engage with these issues and how we can all contribute in an impactful way.
- Climate Emergency Manchester Website and Twitter feed
- Active Citizenship Toolkit Website
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November.
Nicola Chester is the RSPB‘s first and longest-running female columnist, writing for their Nature’s Home Magazine. She has just released her newest book 'On Gallows Down', described as being "about how Nicola came to realise that it is she who can decide where she belongs, for home is a place in nature and imagination, which must be protected through words and actions".
In this shortcast, Nicola describes her personal connection with nature and the ever-present need to protect it. She says that we can all find our own way to protest and reads a couple of extracts from 'On Gallows Down' that detail what she has already lost and reminds us all what we still have to lose.
- Nicola Chester Nature Notes blog and Twitter feed
- On Gallows Down (Chelsea Green Publishing, 7th October 2021)
- RSPB Website and Twitter feed
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
A series of live recordings from outside the National Trust AGM in Harrogate on the 30th October 2021, at which a historic vote was taken to end so-called trail hunting on National Trust land.
Charlie Moores joined a group of staff and supporters from the League Against Cruel Sports - who have been working incredibly hard to spread the message that trail hunting is a smokescreen for illegal fox hunting - his Off the Leash colleague, campaigner and author Dominic Dyer (who you will hear give a barnstorming speech prior to the vote), and Luke Steele from Wild Moors, a Yorkshire-based charity that works with communities, governments and companies to unlock moorland from grouse shooting for the restoration of wildlife and habitats.
In the first half of this podcast - recorded prior to the announcement of the result - you'll hear from Emma Judd Deputy Director of Campaigns at the League Against Cruel Sports, Luke Steele, Dominic Dyer, a League supporter who asked not to be named, and Andy Knott the League's CEO all explaining why the Trust should finally end illegal fox hunting on its land. Next up is Dominic's speech. We then move to the afternoon and the actual moment when news was sent from inside the AGM and - well, the tears and the cheers began.
In the final audio we hear from Emma and Dominic again, a delegate who came out of the AGM to tell us how pleased he was with the vote, and finally from Andy the League's CEO again..
- League Against Cruel Sports league.org.uk
A shortcast (or perhaps more accurately in this case a short interview) between Off the Leash Podcasts colleagues Charlie Moores and Dominic Dyer, discussing the UK government's first response to the petition Dominic launched a few weeks ago following the mass slaughter of a superpod of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins on the Faroe Islands. The petition asks for a suspension of the UK's trade agreement with the Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end.
What did Dominic make of the government's response and what is planned next.
- Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- Facebook Events Taiji and Faroe Islands dolphin and whale march (London, 10 Dec)
- Shortcast #43 Sea Shepherd UK | #StoptheGrind Demo
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).
A shortcast from the street artist known as ATM, whose beautiful wildlife murals are dotted around the UK and beyond. He speaks about what he hopes to inspire with his work and the action we can all take on a local level for wildlife. Like Emily Williamson, he wants to reinforce our cultural connection with the natural world, something that is sorely needed to help create a sustainable future for us and, well, for everything.
ATM's website which features a number of his beautiful and evocative paintings is at atmstreetart.com/
- ATM Website and Twitter feed
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).
In this shortcast, author Laline Paul speaks about activism and the need to wake up, look at issues straight on, get involved and - while we're at it - stick two fingers up at anybody who criticises us for doing so!
Laline is author of 'The Ice', 'The Bees' and 'Pod', which is coming out in the Spring next year.
- Laline Paull Website and Twitter feed
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
'Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast with actor and film-maker Lorna Nickson Brown. Lorna recently played the role of Janis Carter in the HBO Max documentary, Lucy the Human Chimp, and is currently fundraising for a short film, DOG RUN, which tells the story of a vulnerable young man who escapes conditions of modern slavery through his relationship with a dog and nature. (We here at Off the Leash have no financial interest in this film whatsoever, incidentally, we just love stories about dogs and about nature.)
- Dog Run - A Short Film (Kickstarter)
- Lorna Nickson Brown Twitter feed and Instagram
- Lucy the Human Chimp IMDb
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).
In this shortcast, Danielle Shaw - Communications Officer at Birdlife International and author of the blog Nature's Good News - talks about the power of environmental storytelling and how success stories, like Emily Willaimson's, can motivate others to take action, rather than falling into a feeling of helplessness that we all know too well. Danielle celebrates that there are so many influential female voices in what was once a very male-dominated sector - and while there's still work to be done to make sure that diverse voices are being heard in this space, it shows how far we've come thanks to people like Emily.
- Danielle Shaw Nature's Good News
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
"The only thing they care about is burning the heather to drive the numbers of grouse up - they don't care about wildfires at all, let's be realistic."
In the following interview you'll hear Charlie Moores talking with Luke Steele, executive director of Wild Moors. We're discussing grouse moors and grouse moor fires, rewetting our peatlands, support from the government and MPs for moving from a partial ban on burning to a full ban, COP 26, NGOs working together, and a new reporting scheme whereby we can all contribute data that will prove just how many fires the shooting industry are setting on the UK's largest carbon stores.
Charlie begins though by asking Luke with a new so-called 'burning season' just underway whether grouse estates were taking any notice at all of climate change concerns or the partial ban on heather burning that came into force on the 12th of June...
Wild Moors works with communities, governments and companies to unlock moorland from grouse shooting for the conservation of wildlife and habitats.
- Wild Moors Website and Twitter feed
- Wild Moors More than 100 moorland fires reported in England in past four days
- Wild Moors Report grouse moor burning
In The Off the Leash Podcast #19 we discuss the Mark Hankinson trial and the verdict that said ‘GUILTY’ – guilty as hell, of course you and your huntsman friends were educating the lower ranks on how to throw a smokescreen around illegal fox hunting. We are talking about COP 26, the global climate summit which is set against a recent analysis that found a 99.99% scientific consensus that the climate crisis has been caused by us (take that Nigel Lawson you idiot climate change denier) and that we have just a few years left to sort out – well, sort out everything: COP 26 really does represent humanity drinking in the last chance saloon - with Boris Johnson playing the role of chummy ‘pub landlord’. We name our Heroes and Villians of course, and give shoutouts to the Emily Williamson Festival, the National Trust AGM, and Dominic's 'State of the Earth' panel debate at COP 26. But we begin with some thoughts on Sir David Amess, the MP for Southend West who was murdered on the 15th of October...
- The Guardian Obituary Sir David Amess
- Rupert Evelyn, ITV News Mark Hankinson: Leading UK huntsman found guilty of telling others how to hunt illegally
- League Against Cruel Sports Guilty! And now it’s time to strengthen the Hunting Act,
- Hunt Saboteurs Association Website
- The Guardian The heat is on: from the Arctic to Africa, wildlife is being hit hard by climate chaos
- Derbyshire Against The Cull Voices from the Cull Zone (podcast)
- Emily Williamson Festival (12 -13 November) Website
- National Trust Annual General Meeting 2021
- COP 26 State of the Earth Panel Debate (chaired by Dominic Dyer)
In this podcast you'll hear 'Voices from the Cull', the uninterrupted voices of various members of the anti-badger-cull group Derbyshire Against The Cull, "a coalition of angry Derbyshire locals opposed to the mass murder of badgers", recorded in a number of different locations in the county on the 13th and 14th of October.
In a previous podcast we described members of DATC as heroes. Most of us will never know who they are because the risk of harassment and actual violence is so great they use pseudonyms, but that doesn't stop them from going out night after night after night, trying to halt the slaughter of badgers, because they believe it is morally and ethically the right thing to do - for animals and for justice and for fairness – so heroes without a doubt…
- Derbyshire Against the Cull - Facebook page: facebook.com/DerbyshireAgainstTheCull/
- Derbyshire Against the Cull - Twitter feed: @derbyshireATC
- Derbyshire Against the Cull - Ko-fi donation page: ko-fi.com/derbyshireagainstthebadgercull
'Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast with two volunteers (Tina and Kez) from international marine wildlife conservation organization Sea Shepherd UK recorded at the #StoptheGrind demo in Trafalgar Square on the 16th of October, a demo organised in response to the massacre of a superpod of Atlantic White-sided Dolphins by Faroe Islanders last month.
Sea Shepherd UK website (seashepherd.org.uk/)
Sea Shepherd UK Twitter feed and Facebook page
Sea Shepherd UK Operation Bloody Fjords
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).
In this shortcast nature therapy guide & eco coach Holly Barber – who you may know as ecomonkey – tells us how she found her drive to start the Global Wildlife Rescue Project, how concepts of our relationship with nature vary around the world, and how getting outside can help us deal with modern living due to our biology. Much like Emily Williamson in her day, Holly’s work tries to reconnect people with the natural world so that they don’t take it for granted.
- The ecomonkey Website and Twitter feed
- Global Wildlife Rescue Project Website
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival*. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).
"Find the humanity in the midst of the conflict".* In this shortcast, award-winning author and campaigner Mary Colwell talks about what she learned when she set out to experience curlew decline, and what inspiration she has taken from Emily Williamson about changing hearts, minds and the status quo.
- Mary Colwell Website (curlewmedia.com) and Twitter feed
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).In this shortcast, Off the Leash Podcasts' Charlie Moores talks about his own experience as a birder and how he never knew how much he had to thank Emily Williamson for. He also talks about how much more work there is to do, and how it's just as important as ever that we use our voices for nature.
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
Off the Leash Podcasts is proud to publish a series of shortcasts supporting the Emily Williamson Festival. Emily was a co-founder of the RSPB and an eco-activist before the term was even invented. Taking inspiration from her legacy, modern day change-makers will be exploring the links between Conservation, Campaigning, Science and Art in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 13th of November (NB the event was 12 - 14 Nov, but has now been shortened).In this shortcast, Tessa Boase - journalist, campaigner, and the organiser of the Emily Williamson Festival - explains who Emily was and the legacy that the festival is celebrating in a weekend of events at Manchester Art Gallery between the 12th and 14th November 2021.
- Emily Williamson Festival Conservation, Campaigning, Science, Art
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
- Shortcast #18 Tessa Boase | The Story of the RSPB's Women Founders
- Tessa Boase Etta Lemon The Woman who Saved the Birds (Goodreads)
'Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast with Chris Luffingham, Deputy CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports. Chris recorded this audio in Bath, where he was taking part in a pop-up street campaign against the licencing of so-called trail hunting on National Trust land. As well as discussing the Trust's nonsensical support for hunting, which could finally be ended at their AGM in a few weeks time, Chris reflects on the upcoming verdict on the trial of Mark Hankinson, Director of the Master of Foxhounds Association, who was recently in court charged with intentionally encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence under the Hunting Act 2004.
- League Against Cruel Sports Website
- League Against Cruel Sports Twitter feed and Facebook page
- League Against Cruel Sports How to vote FOR a ban on hunting on National Trust land
- ITV News (Rupert Evelyn)'His intention was to encourage illegal hunting,' trial of Mark Hankinson hears
An interview with Nick Mole, Policy Officer with the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), the only UK charity focused solely on tackling the problems caused by pesticides and promoting safe and sustainable alternatives in agriculture, urban areas, homes and gardens. PAN works tirelessly to apply pressure on governments, regulators, policymakers, industry and retailers to reduce the impacts of harmful pesticides to both human health and the environment. Their work includes campaigning for change in policy and practices at home and overseas, coordinating projects which help smallholder farming communities escape ill-health and poverty caused by pesticides, and contributing our wealth of scientific and technical expertise to the work of other organisations that share their aims.
Charlie Moores spoke with Nick shortly after the release of PAN's latest ‘dirty dozen’ research – an analysis of data the government gathers as it monitors pesticide residue levels in or on food consumed in the UK. It was hard to know where to begin with this interview because it’s genuinely shocking stuff, but Charlie began by asking Nick to start with a quick overview of the government research PAN's analysis was based on…which, despite the already truly disturbing results and if he was understanding things correctly, the government appeared to be cherry-picking to make things seem better – or less bad - than they actually are…
- Pesticide Action Network Website
- Pesticide Action Network Twitter feed and Instagram
- Pesticide Action Network The Dirty Dozen
- Pesticide Action Network The Cocktail Effect
In a feisty episode (feistier than usual, which is saying something!) we (Dominic especially) turn our ire on the Faroe Islands and the UK's Free Trade Agreement with one of the wealthiest island nations in the world; Defra and its appalling handling of Bovine Tb and Geronimo in particular; the Charity Commission for leaking a non-event complaint about Operation Ark and Pen Farthing; and the Labour Party for seemingly ignoring animals and wildlife at its Party Conference. In his weekly analysis, Charlie slates the disgusting pheasant-killing season and the appalling shooting industry. In Heroes and Villains, we praise Derbyshire Against the Cull and the League Against Cruel Sports, and slam Sainsbury's and the pesticide industry in the wake of a report by Pesticide Action Network. Finally, we give shoutouts to Dominic's e-petition and next weekend's march against the Grind and Taiji, the Wildlife Trusts for their badger petition, and Leicestershire Against the Cull who are raising funds for a thermal imaging camera.
- Petition Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- Daily Mirror Supermarkets urged to stop selling Faroe Islands seafood after dolphin slaughter
- The Independent Geronimo the alpaca’s owner claims new test results show he did not have TB
- ITV News Pen Farthing supporters 'really angry' as Charity Commission examines Afghanistan evacuation effort
- Wild Justice Today is the opening day of the Pheasant-shooting season
- League Against Cruel Sports Website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page
- Derbyshire Against the Cull Twitter feed and Facebook Page
- Pesticide Action Network The 'dirty dozen'
- Wildlife Trusts Petition UK Government - speed up badger & cattle vaccinations
- Leicestershire Against the Cull Thermal Imaging Camera Appeal
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!A shortcast from 'Summer', a full-time climate and animal rights activist with Animal Rebellion the mass movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience to bring about a transition to a just and sustainable plant-based food system. If you recognise Summer's name you may have heard her recent shortcast on her work with StopHS2 - if not, the link is just below...
- Animal Rebellion website (animalrebellion.org/)
- Animal Rebellion Twitter feed and Facebook page
- Shortcast #35 'Summer' | StopHS2
- Shortcast #16 Alex Lockwood | 'Planting Value' Report
An interview with Nicola Hodgins, Policy Manager at WDC (Whale and Dolphin Conservation). about the Grind - the killing of Pilot Whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands.
Our conversation was triggered of course by the unprecedented mass killing of more than 1400 Atlantic White-sided Dolphins by Faroese hunters on September 12th, and the disturbing and heartbreaking images that have gone around the world.
The Faroese themselves seemed shocked by the scale of the killing, and reaction here in the UK has been profound - disgust, outrage, and a determination to do something - anything - to stop these hunts in their tracks. Petitions have been launched, boycotts of Faeroe-caught fish suggested - yet just a few days later another Grind took place and another 53 Pilot Whales killed.
Nicola has been working on the Grind for many years and as she says in this interview, much as we might want a quick fix, there really isn't one simple answer, and that it will be a combination of approaches - including dialogue with the Faroese themselves - that will finally stop these hunts for good.
- Whale and Dolphin Conservation Website
- Whale and Dolphin Conservation Twitter feed and Facebook page
- Petition (WDC and SeaLegacy) Ask the Faroese Prime Minister Bárður á Steig Nielsen to take a firm regulatory stance against the slaughter of dolphins in the Faroe Islands
- Petition (Gov.uk website) Suspend trade agreement with Faroe Islands until all whale & dolphin hunts end
- The Guardian (Sept 14th) Outcry over killing of almost 1,500 dolphins on Faroe Islands
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast from Luke Steele, executive director of Wild Moors, the organisation that works with communities, governments and companies to unlock an area of moorland the size of Greater London by 2030, moving it from grouse shooting to the conservation of wildlife and habitats for the benefit of all.
- Wild Moors website - wildmoors.org.uk/
- Wild Moors Twitter feed and Facebook page
TW: this podcast contains strong language and some fairly graphic details.
An edited selection of speeches recorded at an incredibly inspiring and emotionally powerful protest event held in London outside the Home Office on the 24th of September. Speakers include Mel, a well-known animal rights activist and hunt saboteur; Dominic Dyer; and Vanessa Hudson of the Animal Welfare Party. Other speakers stepped from the crowd and we don't have their names, but where we do we have used Chapter Markers for clarification.
The protest was held to support #FreetheMBRBeagles, the grassroots campaign to free the MBR Beagles from MBR Acres, a Cambridgeshire-based beagle breeding facility which prepares and supplies beagles to be used - and ultimately to die - in testing facilities. The factory puppy farm breeds up to 2000 beagle puppies every year. At 16 weeks old they are sold to contract testing laboratories across the UK for toxicology testing. The breeding facility and those tests are licenced by the Home Office, a government department headed by the home secretary, a post considered one of the Great Offices of State and held since July 2019 by Priti Patel.
Off the Leash Podcasts has made this podcast to support the campaign. Our platform and our services are 100% free. If we can support your campaign please get in touch with us.
Please use #FreeTheMBRBeagles if you share this podcast.
What can you do to help? here are some important links:
- Free the MBR Beagles on Facebook and on Twitter
- Camp Beagle on Facebook and Twitter (visit Camp Beagle at MBR Acres Ltd, Sawtry Way, Huntingdon, PE28 2DT (please bring vegan food with you)
- Sign the online petition "Change the Law to include laboratory animals in the Animal Welfare Act"
- Email your local MP and ask them sign 'EDM 175' (asking for a scientific review of the validity of animal testing).
Charlie Moores in conversation with Dr Alex Lees, Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Recently Alex and Dr Jack Shutt published a paper that was widely reported in the mainstream media titled “Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts?” That’s quite a striking headline, isn’t it? Providing for wildlife may be harming species of conservation concern.
The abstract of this paper is even more thought-provoking, “Generalised provisioning is enthusiastically promoted by many conservation organisations as a means to foster connection with nature and help wildlife. However, such a vast input of additional resources into the environment must have diverse, ecosystem-wide consequences….Using a case study of UK garden bird food and nestbox provisioning, we hypothesise how well-intentioned provisioning could be contributing to widespread ecological community change and homogenisation. This may consequently help drive declines in species of conservation concern by asymmetrically benefitting common and adaptable species, leaving their competitors exposed to enhanced direct competition, hyperpredation, mesopredator release and heightened disease transmission risks.”
In very simple terms, then, the paper is asking whether providing wildlife with extra resources like food and nesting sites could be having a negative impact on some declining species – which, if you feed your garden birds like I do, is – well, food for thought…
- Biological Conservation Sept 2021 Killing with kindness: Does widespread generalised provisioning of wildlife help or hinder biodiversity conservation efforts? (Jack D.Shutt and Alexander C.Lees)
- Follow Dr Alex Lees on Twitter
- See also Interview #03 Dr Alex Lees | Conservation vs Animal Rights Activism?
When we started these podcasts we both had a slight concern that there might not be enough going on to do an episode every week. We should have known better – actually we really should have known better because we’ve been working on this stuff for years. There are apparently no limits to humanity’s war with wildlife and the environment, and a case in point this week is the Grind, the disgusting slaughter of cetaceans in the Faeroe Islands, which Dominic discusses in-depth, suggesting that suspending the UK's free trade agreement with the Islands is key. Dominic also gives an update on Nowzad and Pen Farthing. Charlie talks about the National Trust and so-called trail hunting. We have a shortcast from Luke Steele of Wild Moors. And we’ll be naming our heroes (including Sea Shepherd and 'Stop the Stink') and villains and giving shoutouts to a march in London, a discussion and webinar on the badger cull, and a Whale and Dolphin Conservation petition 'Lockdown Never Ends' which is aimed at the TUI Group .
- Dominic Dyer Daily Mail opinion piece on the Grind
- Trade between UK and Faeroe Islands September 2021 pdf
- Nowzad Operation Ark update
- The War on Wildlife Project National Trust and trail hunting 101
- League Against Cruel Sports Trail hunting
- Wild Moors Standard Life snaps up moorland estate for rewilding in net-zero drive
- Stop the Stink website
- Herts and Middx Badger Group 'Voices for Badgers' webinar
- Whale and Dolphin Conservation Lockdown never ends – tell TUI to stop supporting captivity
Another special episode (as we suggested last week), this time focussing on Geronimo the Alpaca. Not an 'inside story' as such (though Dominic was of course heavily involved), instead we’re going to approach the subject in a slightly more tangential way – asking why did the media get so interested in what could have been just yet another bovine TB story, and what can we learn from that about promoting other campaigns; looking at how Geronimo and Helen Macdonald have done so much to re-awaken the debate about bovine TB and the badger cull; and of course we talk about the self-inflicted mess that Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has found itself in – referencing a well-attended protest that took place outside Defra's London offices last week.
- BBC News Geronimo the alpaca: Who is he and why did he hit the headlines?
- Off the Leash Podcasts Geronimo Defra Protest (27:07)
- Spectator TV Is an animal's life worth as much as a human's? (YouTube)
- BBC News Badger Cull New control areas despite cull phase-out
- Helen Macdonald Twitter feed
- Iain McGill Twitter feed
- Kevin O'Sullivan Twitter feed
A podcast edited from audio recorded by Off the Leash Podcasts in London on September 8th 2021 at a protest event outside the offices of Defra - the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.
Defra is the government department that sanctions the badger cull and that just a week ago forcibly removed Geronimo the Alpaca from a farm in Gloucestershire, based on tests that concluded - wrongly - that Gerniomo - who was brought to the UK from New Zealand in August 2017 - had bovine TB. That claim has been consistently disputed by Geronimo's owner, Helen Macdonald, a vet who had been keeping Geronimo in isolation since Defra first issued the order to have the animal killed.
Speakers at the protest included Helen herself who talked about how Defra has harassed her for four years; highly-respected veterinary scientist Dr Iain McGill, Director of the Prion Group; Talk Radio's Kevin O'Sullivan who has been an outspoken supporter of both Geronimo and Operation Ark, the effort to get Pen Farthing and his animal rescue staff out of Afghanistan; and wildlife protection campaigner, writer and broadcaster (and The Off the Leash Podcast co-host) Dominic Dyer who also introduces the other speakers.
Longer video recordings of the protest are available online, but we have edited the key points down to make them available to as wide an audience as possible.
- BBC News Geronimo the alpaca: Who is he and why did he hit the headlines?
- Helen Macdonald Twitter feed
- Dominic Dyer Twitter feed
- Iain McGill Twitter feed
- Kevin O'Sullivan Twitter feed
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast about the work being done to stop the ecological destruction of HS2 from 'Summer', a climate and animal justice activist working with Stop HS2.
Summer would understandably prefer not to give out her personal contact details, so Off the Leash has offered to act as an intermediary. if you'd like to offer support or help please email offtheleashpodcasts@gmail.com and we will forward any relevant messages.
- Stop Hs2 Website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page
- HS2 Rebellion Website, Twitter feed, and Facebook page
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast about fox cub hunting or cubbing from Charlie Moores. A version of this audio first appeared in Our Off The leash podcast in August (link below) but with so many reports of cubbing on social media at the moment, we felt that it would be helpful to state again what cubbing is and how to recognise the revolting individuals who do it.
- Off the Leash Podcast Episode 13
- Hunt Saboteurs Association Website - Hotline phone number 07443 148 426
- League Against Cruel Sports Website - Animal Crimewatch phone number 0300 444 1234
- North West Hunt Sabs Cub Hunting and how to sab them
- Fox Hunting Evidence UK Truth About Cub Hunting
In this one-off special episode we focus exclusively on the inside story of 'Operation Ark', the campaign set up by Afghanistan-based animal rescue charity Nowzad to evacuate its staff and animals from Kabul as the city fell to the Taliban.
In a remarkable two week period social media lit up as people everywhere demanded action to get Nowzad staff and their animals out of danger; British media first embraced former marine and Nowzad founder Pen Farthing then turned against him as a government minister and his special advisor spun what had always been a humanitarian rescue mission into a false argument about putting 'pets before people'; and with an aircraft ready to fly into Kabul Airport the story became a race against time to land as air corridors shifted and the few remaining troops that controlled access to entrance gates and landing strips were pulled out.
While all this was taking place, Off the Leash's Dominic Dyer found himself becoming the public face of Operation Ark, explaining the same points over again on multiple TV and radio appearances and - in increasingly frustrated and exasperated tones - on his own social media platforms.
Operation Ark continues to work for the evacuation of all Nowzad staff, but with at least Pen Farthing and many of the charity's animals safe Dominic can now look back on a tumultuous fortnight, the barriers he came up against, and the extraordinarily compassionate and courageous people he found himself fighting for. As he explains in this podcast he initially had no idea how consuming the battle to 'rescue the animal rescuers' would be but felt compelled to do whatever he could because, as he reflects, "if you're fortunate enough to be part of a team like that, make the most of it - that's what makes life worth living".
- Nowzad Website and Facebook
- Nowzad Operation Ark updates
- Pen Farthing Twitter feed
Perfect shortcast? Spoiler alert - there is no such thing as the perfect shortcast. Or the typical shortcast. Or the right length shortcast, or even the right sounding shortcast. Shortcasts come in all shapes and sizes and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few techniques to make a better shortcast, so we’ve offered a few suggestions here. Some might seem obvious if you’re an old hand but hopefully they’ll be useful if you’re not.
We cover content, recording, and editing (and don’t worry about that last one, we’ll do any editing for you, and, as always, it won’t cost you a thing...)
- You might also like So What are Shortcasts?
- Follow us on Twitter @OtlPodcasts and Instagram @otlpods
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!A shortcast from Derbyshire Against The Cull, flagging up their 'Walk to Save the Badgers' on September 5th and also explaining how they help prevent the mass slaughter of badgers using disruption techniques relevant not only to Derbyshire but other cull zones as well.
- Derbyshire Against The Cull (part of Derbyshire's vocal opposition to the mass murder of badgers) - Facebook and Twitter
- Badger Action Network - resource hub for action against the badger cull
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast from author and field naturalist Joe Gray. Joe talks about the importance of ethics in conservation and reads a short extract from his just-published novel, 'The Gardens of Greenspring Road'. Author royalties from this and Joe's previous book, 'Thirteen Paces by Four', are being donated to the World Land Trust.
- Joe Gray (writing as Dewey Dabbar) The Gardens of Greenspring Road
- Joe Gray Thirteen Paces by Four
- Joe Gray website Deep Green Earth
- Ecological Citizen website
- World Land Trust website
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
A shortcast with animal advocates actor Peter Egan and broadcaster Jan Leeming, recorded at an event in London which was raising funds for Animal SOS Sri Lanka, a charity founded by Kim Cooling, of which they are both patrons.
The shortcast starts with Jan explaining how she became a patron of Animal SOS Sri Lanka
- Animal SOS Sri Lanka website
- Animal SOS Sri Lanka Facebook and Twitter feeds
- JustGiving page for Animal SOS Sri Lanka
Charlie Moores talks with the remarkable Kim Cooling, inspirational founder of animal rescue charity Animal SOS Sri Lanka. which works to alleviate the widespread suffering of street animals across the island. The charity provides quality veterinary care, refuge, rehabilitation, adoption schemes, as well as conducting sterilisation, education and rabies control outreach programs. Set up a decade ago Animal SOS Sri Lanka is now looking after an astonishing 2000 animals, and prides itself on giving animals a second chance of a healthy and fulfilling life.
Charlie spoke with Kim shortly before the opening of an event at Art gallery NoHo Studios where paintings donated by three artists were to be sold and money donated to both Aimal SOS Sri Lanka and the middle-east based charity Safe Haven for Donkeys. At that event, he also took the opportunity to speak with two of Animal SOS Sri Lanka's Patrons for a shortcast we've also published - the actor and animal advocate Peter Egan and broadcaster and presenter Jan Leeming, both of whom are well-known for their commitment to animals and animal welfare charities.
Back to the interview and before Kim explains what drives her work, Charlie asked her to give an outline of the charity that has consumed her life for so long...
- Animal SOS Sri Lanka website
- Animal SOS Sri Lanka Facebook and Twitter feeds
- JustGiving page for Animal SOS Sri Lanka
We're building a free audio platform for campaigners and activists like us called Off the Leash Podcasts. And we thought that a short series to explain just what Off the Leash Podcasts is all about might be helpful.
At Off the Leash we have a regular weekly podcast, we record interviews, and we host shortcasts. Shortcasts? Let’s start with a shortcast about shortcasts...
- You might also like Making the 'perfect' shortcast?
- Follow us on Twitter @OtlPodcasts and Instagram @otlpods
Charlie Moores talks with Dr Alex Lees, Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University about perceived clashes or differences in opinion between conservationists and animal rights activists. The conversation was triggered by a thoughtful and well-expressed Twitter thread in which Alex wrote that “there are several tropes of animal rights activism which clash with conservation goals", going on to list, for example, trophy hunting, invasive species, and zoos. Charlie's response to that thread was that you could equally say that there were conservation tropes that clashed with animal rights goals...
There is of course more overlap between conservationists and animal advocates than those sentences might suggest, and in the following conversation Charlie and Alex discuss issues that both divide and unite them - including a shared passion for wildlife and a desire for more nuanced conversations to take place in what has become a rather fraught area of discussion.
- Follow Dr Alex Lees on Twitter
Last week was notable for three things: an alpaca named Geronimo, a report that led the UN secretary-general António Guterres, to call it a “code red for humanity”, and the unfolding tragedy in Afghanistan. We discuss all three. We also have a shortcast from veterinary scientist Iain McGill (who has done so much work exposing the government's failed 'test and slaughter' BovineTB policy), and raw audio from Dominic on the 'Rescue the Animal Rescuers' campaign. Charlie has a close look at a petition which it turns out wants 'animal rights protestors' kept off farms. In Heroes and Villains we praise the animal welfare teams working in Kabul, and slate the politicians that made such a mess of last week. In our 'Shoutout' we give the link to donate to Nowzad, Pen Farthing's animal rescue centre in Afghanistan.
- The Independent Geronimo's owner says she has 'new hope'
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
- The Guardian Denialism, Anti-vaxxers, and the climate crisis
- Nowzad (winning the war for animals) website and Donate page
- The Mayhew Afghanistan
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Rescue the Animal Rescuers: Ricky Gervais, Dame Judi Dench and Peter Egan join calls for Boris Johnson and the Government to rescue animal rescuers from the Taliban
As the Taliban closes in on Kabul and an emergency evacuation begins before the city falls, an urgent campaign "Rescue the Animal Rescuers" has been established to call on the Prime Minister and British Government to include on the British Rescue list, vets, vet nurses, animal care staff and their immediate family members, who are working for two British animal welfare charities in Kabul, Nowzad and the Mayhew.
Both these charities have worked for over a decade in Afghanistan in the most dangerous of conditions to vaccinate and neuter street dogs, put in place rabies control programmes, care for working animals and rehome rescue dogs and cats in Britain and around the world.
They have invested millions of pounds from British donors to set up veterinary clinics and animal care centres and to train a new generation of Afghan men and women to become qualified vets and vet nurses, which has led to a significant improvement in animal welfare in Afghanistan.
However, with American and Nato forces withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban about to regain control of the country, this work can no longer continue and the dedicated animal rescuers of Afghanistan are now to be left at the mercy of the Taliban.
Many of the young women working as vets and vet nurses face forced marriage to Taliban leaders under the threat of rape or death and many of the men could also face deadly reprisals from the Taliban, particularly for assisting Nato forces and contractors in caring for their military and security dogs.
Britain is desperately short of qualified vets and vet nurses and all the veterinary care teams that work for Nowzad and the Mayhew could quickly find employment in veterinary surgeries in Britain if they were rescued from Kabul.
Ricky Gervais comedian actor, director and producer said :"Pen Farthing and his team Nowzad have done amazing work for over a decade in Kabul, they have saved thousands of dogs and provided work for the local community and instigated educational programmes which have benefited their community. Their lives are now in danger. They need our help now."
Actor and animal welfare campaigner Peter Egan said : "I visited Pen Farthing and Nowzad in Kabul in 2013. I was so impressed by the inspiring work he and his team were doing that I became their patron/ambassador. Working in a war zone has always made extraordinary demands on this wonderful charity..demands that were met by Pen and his team. Now that the Taliban will certainly overrun Kabul in the next few days his life and the lives of all of his team are in danger. they need our help..we must not ignore them in their hour of need. We must get Pen...his team and his animals to safety...it is not impossible to achieve, it just takes commitment. The same support is needed for The Mayhew and their staff. Let's get this done."
- For more details on the work of Nowzad see https://www.nowzad.com
- Donate to Nowzad
- For more details on the work of the Mayhew see https://themayhew.org/
- For media contact campaign: Dominic Dyer on 07876 596233 or dominicdyer@aol.com
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
"Geronimo has shone a light into the deep, dark and murky mire of bovine TB policy...trying to kill one's way out of trouble was never going to work"
Highly-respected veterinary scientist Dr Iain McGill, Director of the Prion Group, has been working with Helen McDonald to assist in her battle with Defra over the proposed slaughter of Geronimo the Alpaca, condemned to death because of an inaccurate bovine TB test which Iain says is part of an outdated 'vicious test and slaughter' policy that doesn't work and needs to be replaced immediately.
Iain does research in disease risk analysis, bovine TB, animal conservation and protection, prions and agricultural policy.
Dr Iain McGill on ResearchGate and Twitter feed
BBC News Geronimo the alpaca: Who is he and why has he hit the headlines?
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!Julia Hammett is Chair of Oxfordshire Badger Group, a charity celebrating and protecting the badgers of Oxfordshire. Recorded live at Wytham Woods at the Group's first meeting after lockdown, Julia discusses the threats facing local badgers and the group's vaccination programme against bovine TB.
Wytham Woods is an ancient semi-natural woodland, which has been owned and maintained by the University of Oxford since 1942. Its 1000 acres are a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and are one of the most researched pieces of woodland in the world, exceptionally rich in flora and fauna, with over 500 species of plants, a wealth of woodland habitats (with numerous well-studied badger setts), and 800 species of butterflies and moths
- Oxfordshire Badger Group website and Twitter feed
- Wytham Woods website
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!A shortcast with Jack Wootton, the founder of the Forgotten Fish Project, which to quote from their website “focuses on a forgotten species that once played an amazingly integral role in our freshwater ecosystems". That forgotten species - the European Eel - was once abundant but is now - amazingly - Critically Endangered, one step away from extinction...
- The Forgotten Fish Project website
- The War on Wildlife Project European Eels - slipping towards extinction?
- European Eel IUCN Red List
Charlie Moores talks with Henry Mance, acclaimed chief features writer at the Financial Times, about his thoughtful and beautifully-written first book, 'How To Love Animals in a Human-shaped World', which was published by Jonathan Cape at the end of April this year. The book touches on some hugely important themes – not just our often contradictory relationships with animals but the consequences of not even considering them in the way we have shaped and continue to shape the world. It has been deservedly receiving positive reviews across the board – The Guardian saying for example that the book is “Written with humour and humanity, Mance’s argument is both convincing and urgent: we need to make dramatic changes to our lifestyle if we want to prevent ecological catastrophe.”
Henry has also narrated an audiobook version of 'How To Love Animals in a Human-shaped World' and he kindly agreed to read some pages from a chapter titled 'Nothing but Footprints' as an exclusive bonus to this interview. The reading was recorded the week before the damning IPCC report on the climate crisis was released – a report that warns that humanity is on the very brink of creating a planet that life can not survive on - but those pages do indeed focus on the climate emergency, opening with a paragraph that includes the memorable line “If we believed, if we truly believed, we would act…”
- Henry Mance Financial Times chief features writer
- Henry Mance "How to Love Animals in a Human-shaped World"
- Audiobook version of "How to Love Animals in a Human-shaped World" on Audible
- The Guardian review of "How to Love Animals in a Human-shaped World" by PD Smith
- IPCC Report AR6 Climate Change 2021
In this episode we focus on the government's mess of a BovineTb 'strategy' that has seen so many negative headlines this week as Defra Minister George Eustice threatens to have Geronimo the alpaca killed (Dominic explains the situation from a behind the scenes perspective) and a coalition of animal welfare organisations submit more information on the badger cull to the Bern Convention. We made it out of our lockdown shelters to join Oxfordshire Badger Group at Wytham Woods (and our first shortcast comes from that visit courtesy of Oxon Badgers chair Juila Hammett). Away from badgers, Charlie highlights a report by Rewilding Britain which details what area of our National Parks are given over to grouse shooting and excoriates the vile 'tradition' of cubbing - training hunting hounds by setting them on fox cubs. In Heroes and Villains, we thank Helen Macdonald (Geronimo's owner) for her stance and the 'Seven Sisters' acquitted of aggravated trespass charges brought by HS2, and we name Defra and the trustees of the Science Museum as our villains.
Lastly, we have a second shortcast, this time from Jack Wootton, founder of the Forgotten Fish Project.
- The Sun Boris Johnson condemns Geronimo the alpaca to death
- Badger Trust Wildlife groups allege breach of international treaty obligations
- Oxfordshire Badger group website and Twitter feed
- Rewilding Britain intensively-managed grouse moors cover over three-quarters of a million acres of Britain’s national parks
- The War on Wildlife Project Cubbing | An autumn sickness
- North West Hunt Sabs Cub Hunting and how to sab them
- HS2 Rebelion Seven sisters acquitted after all charges dismissed
- Culture Unstained Science Museum signed Shell “gagging clause”
- Forth Rivers Trust The Forgotten Fish Project
- The War on Wildlife Project European Eels - slipping towards extinction?
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!As moorland campaigner Bob Berzins says in this shortcast,"The shooting industry is not built on Pennine granite, it's a castle made of sand, and the tide is coming in." And living in the Peak District and seeing the failing and crime-ridden grouse moors up close Bob should know.
Bob wrote a blog recently for the Raptor Persecution UK (RPUK) website which was titled “Organised crime, harassment & intimidation – another day on the grouse moors” and that’s very much the theme of this shortcast which he suggested should be titled "A Network of Crime'.
Bob also published a novel recently called Snared which Charlie Moores reviewed saying it “absolutely nails the unsavoury workings of the intensive grouse shooting industry to the wall". Bob, actor Nick Wood and Charlie created an audiobook version of Snared, and with Bob's permission we are reproducing a few pages from Chapter 24 of Snared here as well. Please note that all money from the sales of that audiobook goes to a domestic abuse charity, IDAS.
- Bob Berzins website and Twitter feed
- Moorland Monitors website and Twitter feed
- The War on Wildlife Project 'Snared' review
- RPUK Guest post Organised crime, harassment & intimidation – another day on the grouse moors
- Domestic Abuse charity IDAS
"...not only does [the way the land is managed] not deliver for wildlife, or the environment, or local communities, but it also doesn't even deliver for the grouse shoots themselves." Luke Steele, August 2021
Charlie Moores talks with Luke Steele about grouse moors, upland rewilding, and the role peatlands can play in carbon storage. Luke is Executive Director of Wild Moors, the recently renamed organisation that has sprung up from Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors, a group founded in 2014 with the stated aim of ending grouse shooting on Yorkshire’s moors “to free the way for these spaces to be managed in a way where their full potential can be reached”. Wild Moors very much continues that work, but has broadened its scope beyond Yorkshire to help put in a new vision of uplands across the UK.
In the lead up to the 'Inglorious 12th' – the start of a season where 'sportsmen' visit degraded moorlands to use Red Grouse as live targets – Luke and Charlie look at the failing grouse shooting industry, positive movement by Yorkshire Water on the management of its land, and a brighter future for our uplands and its wildlife - but they begin by discussing the rebranding of the group.
Wild Moors website and Twitter feed
"We need a Defra that is not controlled by industry groups to protect their interests, we need a Defra that is there to protect the interests of the environment."A live recording of a talk given by author, campaIgner and Off the Leash Podcasts co-founder Dominic Dyer to the Oxfordshire Badger Group at the world-renownedWytham Woods on August 1st. In just seventeen minutes Dominic manages to pull together threads on food strategy, farming, the global pandemic, and of course the badger cull (without notes and almost without pausing for breath).
- Oxfordshire Badger Group website and Twitter feed
- Wytham Woods website
Our second episode of season two starts with a discussion of Henry Dimbleby's National Food Strategy and a look at Earth Overshoot Day (which this year fell in July). We have a new team member - Lisa Marley introduces herself in a shortcast. Charlie talks about August 7th's upcoming Hen Harrier Day, and Bob Berzins follows up with a shortcast about the harassment and intimidation he faces for speaking out about wildlife crime on grouse moors. In Heroes and Villains we praise Luke Steele and Wild Moors for their work with Yorkshire Water, student and artist Giuditta Migiani for her superb badger pictograms, and the RNLI (not a charity normally in our focus but Nigel Farage's comments were just plain stupid); our Villians of the Week are the organisers of the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show for banning Action Against Foxhunting and the regressive 'countryside lobbyists' who want to water down animal welfare and animal sentience legislation. Finally, in our 60 Second Shoutout we flag up our own expanding collection of shortcasts and a Defra consultation on extending the Ivory Act to cover all ivory-bearing species.
- National Food Strategy The Plan
- Earth Overshoot Day Press-release
- Lisa Marley website and Twitter feed
- Wild Justice Hen Harrier Day
- Raptor Persecution UK Bob Berzins guest post: Organised crime, harassment & intimidation – another day on the grouse moors
- The War on Wildlife Project 'Snared' by Bob Berzins Book Review
- Wild Moors website and Twitter feed
- Giuditta Migiani website and Twitter feed
- RNLI website and Twitter feed
- Action Against Foxhunting AAF banned from Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show
- Defra consultation Extending the Ivory Act
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
"...there is rarely one way to change things...listening to different voices is in my DNA". In this personal and nuanced shortcast award-winning author and campaigner Mary Colwell reflects on her collaborative approach to conservation, a non-confrontational process of dialogue rooted in years of documentary-making for the BBC.
- Mary Colwell website Curlew Media and Twitter feed
- Mary Colwell Beak, Tooth, and Claw (published April 2021) and Curlew Moon (published April 2019)
- Curlew Recovery Partnership
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!As wildlife campaigner (and cat lover) Maggie Wilcox says in this shortcast, "In my mind every life is precious - but every time a cat wanders outside his or her home there is a potential for a threat to life".
Maggie (who many of us perhaps know better from Twitter as NorfolkBea and the #NestsNotNets campaign) has set up a petition on Change.org 'Keep cats safe and save wild lives. Amend the Animals Act 1971 and end feline free roaming' which (to date) has attracted relatively few signatures - and not a little vitriol! However many people do eventually sign, in our opinion Maggie should be commended for at least starting the conversation - and doing so (as you'll hear) in an extremely compassionate and thoughtful way.
- Change.org Keep cats safe and save wild lives. Amend the Animals Act 1971 and end feline free roaming
- Maggie Wilcox on Twitter
*‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
'Trail hunting is nothing but a smokescreen for the illegal hunting of wildlife".* In this shortcast Robert Pownall, founder of Keep The Ban, a non-profit organisation campaigning to end the hunting of wildlife in the name of entertainment, discusses the lie that is so-called 'trail hunting' and asks listeners to petition the National Trust to permanently end the issuing of 'trail hunting' licences which have facilitated the illegal hunting of foxes on Trust land.
Keep The Ban also recently launched a campaign to gather more followers on Twitter than the hunting lobby group Countryside Alliance. They have achieved that, and if you'd like to add your name to their still-growing list please follow them @keeptheban - and please join nearly 300,000 signatories to their petition to Strengthen the 2004 Hunting Act
- Keep The Ban website
- Change.org petition Strengthen the Hunting Act
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
In this shortcast podcaster and campaigner Lisa Marley talks about the latest episode of her wonderful podcast series 'Crimes Against Nature', which features an interview with inspirational farmer, conservationist and reintroduction specialist Derek Gow. It includes a segment from Lisa's interview in which Derek compares doing nothing to tackle the biodiversity crisis with being on a runaway train speeding towards a 'ruinous end'.
- Crimes Against Nature The Beaver is Back with Derek Gow
- Crimes Against Nature Subscribe / RSS feed
- Derek Gow Consultancy and website
- Derek Gow Bringing back the Beaver
Back after our summer break, season two kicks off with a withering look at the lack of animal welfare in the horse- and greyhound-racing industries. We then turn our focus on the National Trust and its support for so-called 'trail hunting' - a cover for illegal foxhunting (which includes a shortcast from Rob Pownall of Keep the Ban). Charlie tells the dog whistlers yelling 'woke' to wake the heck up. In 'Hero and Villain' we thank campaigners at Camp Beagle and swift nestbox manufacturer John Stimpson, and pour scorn on Ian Botham's declaration of war on the RSPB and the 'penis rockets' of Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson. In 60 Second Shoutout, we highlight the new shortcasts we've recently uploaded (and introduce a new one from author and campaigner Mary Colwell), flag up Peter Egan's petition to have laboratory animals included in the Animal Welfare Act and Maggie Wilcox's petition on free-roaming cats (and we have our third shortcast of the episode from Maggie herself). Finally, Dominic trails the Oxford Badger Group 'Badger Picnic' he will be talking at.
- Animal Aid investigation into horse racing industry
- Founder of The Citro Glen Black shortcast
- The War on Wildlife Project National Trust and Trail Hunting 2021
- Podcast – Interview: Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns League Against Cruel Sports
- Keep the Ban website and Twitter feed
- Protesting animal experimentation Camp Beagle
- BBC News John Stimpson and his Swift Nestboxes
- The War on Wildlife Project Botham declares war on the RSPB
- Mary Colwell's Curlew Media website and book 'Beak, Tooth and Claw'
- Peter Egan petition: Change the law to include laboratory animals in the Animal Welfare Act
- Maggie Wilcox petition: Keep cats safe and save wild lives
- Oxford Badger Group 'Badger Picnic' on August 1st
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
"It's such a sad indictment of the current way in which science is conducted and vested interests have infected our society." Ecologist Tom Langton has been looking at the scientific and legal aspects of the dreaded badger culls since 2016, and this summer represents his fifth year working on what is being described as the worst miscarriage of UK biological science for fifty years.
Tomorrow (the 22nd of July) Tom is off to London for a High Court challenge of Secretary of State George Eustice over the “Next Steps” policy, which was published in March 2020 and revealed the way in which badgers may be legally shot in huge numbers over the next five years and beyond - all the way up to 2038.
For this shortcast we asked Tom to explain a bit about the new 2020 policy and what exactly was being challenged – a challenge which, incidentally, has taken over a year of battling to gain permission for. Tom starts off with aspects of the 2020 policy in terms of what we might expect to see under the wording of the controversial new policy and the dilemma (in Tom’s words) that it now offers to those who may be invited for the foreseeable future to vaccinate badgers as long as they stand by while most of them are killed first...
- The Badger Crowd Standing up for badgers
- Tom Langton Twitter feed
"...to do anything other than get rid of the licences would be bad for animals...which is ultimately why we're doing this, it's for the animals..."
Charlie Moores talks with Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns at the League Against Cruel Sports, about why the National Trust licencing so-called 'trail hunting' is such an important issue for anyone who cares about wildlife, and what both members and non-members can do to ensure that 'trail hunting' licences that were suspended in November 2020 are banned permanently at the Trust's next AGM in October.
- League Against Cruel Sports Hunting, trespass, and the National Trust
- The War on Wildlife Project The National Trust and Trail Hunting 2021
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a conservation powerhouse. As the RSPB's homepage proudly states - at the time of publishing this anyway - they are 'Celebrating 100 Years of Saving Birds". So, those grim-faced men holding indistinct placards in the black and white header photograph on the RSPB's website, they would be the charity's founders, would they?
Not even close. As author, journalist, and campaigner Tessa Boase explains in this wonderful shortcast, the founders were actually three remarkable women who took on the powerful plumage trade: Emily Williamson, Etta Lemon, and Eliza Phillips. But as Tessa also reveals, it took determined detective work on her part - and a chance find in the RSPB's own archives - to uncover the truth.
Conservation (and birdwatching especially) has been saying for years that young women have few role models to follow, yet conservation itself appears to have buried a trio of female activists that have literally changed the world for birds and whose stories of determination, commitment, and passion are so wonderfully inspirational. Now, though, thanks to Tessa Boase, those stories are being told and will (hopefully) encourage young conservationists long into the future.
- Tessa Boase website and Twitter feed
- Tessa's book Etta Lemon The Woman who Saved the Birds
- A statue for Emily Williamson emilywilliamsonstatue.com
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Snares. Metal nooses, indiscriminate and cruel. Hundreds of thousands of these primitive devices litter the countryside. Two things about snares: a) most people think they're already banned; b) the only people who support their use are gamekeepers and a few farmers (and lobbyists for the shooting industry of course).
Director of the Scottish charity OneKind (and formerly Head of Investigations at the RSPB) Bob Elliot has had more than his fair share of experience of snares. OneKind operates SnareWatch, an information-sharing and reporting facility about snaring in the UK, and in the following shortcast Bob is unequivocal about his and OneKind's position on snares: "We've got to ban them - they shouldn't be being used in our countryside - they are causing unnecessary and unjustified suffering."
- OneKind website and Twitter feed
- SnareWatch Annual Report 2020
- The War on Wildlife Project Articles on snares
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
As the Vegan Society says, "our food system is broken". Food producers are not rewarded for their work, livestock production is cruel to farmed animals, intensive agriculture is causing biodiversity loss, and what we eat is fuelling an obesity crisis. Is there an alternative? Published on the 12th July by The Vegan Society, Planting Value in the Food System presents an ambitious but practical vision for a fully plant-based food system with the ability to help achieve climate targets, reduce the impact on our health service, improve the experiences of farmers and farmworkers, and ultimately save the lives of millions of animals.
'Planting Value' was written by Dr Alex Lockwood, Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland, in consultation with The Vegan Society policy team. In this shortcast Alex explains the process and thinking behind the report, and the four key elements we should look out for.
There is a real opportunity for deep-rooted change in the way we produce, relate to, and consume food, and to quote Alex from this shortcast, "The Vegan Society is working towards a vision for a food system which not only respects the rights of animals but is also economically and socially just".
Vegan Society New Report: Planting Value in the Food System
Dr Alex Lockwood on Twitter
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Last month we posted a shortcast by ecologist Tom Langton which discussed a call for evidence made by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (the JNCC) which could lead to the removal of legislative protection for many of the UK's amphibians and reptiles, and which – in Tom’s words - could "allow snake-bashing to become lawful again".
The following week a short, precise message was sent to the JNCC by a coalition of over 30 non-government organisations (see - Open NGO letter responding to proposed changes to the eligibility criteria for the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981)) which specifically referenced the Quinquennial Review – the process by which every five years an inter-agency group makes recommendations to Defra and the devolved administrations in Great Britain on changes to the schedules (or lists) of protected species.
The joint message included the demand, “We would like to formally request that the Quinquennial Review Group carry out a public consultation on the decision to change the eligibility criteria before proceeding with the planned timetable. We await your response.”Tom decided to go a bit further and also wrote to the various government bodies concerned to remind them of some of the detail and asking them to be clear about things as soon as possible - by the 26th July to be precise. He also popped in a freedom of information request for the paperwork for good measure.
In his letter, Tom suggested that legal issues are at stake here and that repercussions could be huge. What seems strange is the lack of response from those government bodies. You can imagine it might perhaps take a few days to draft a response, but it’s now been more than two weeks since his letter was sent. Maybe they disagree amongst themselves - or simply don’t know what to do about it….
In this latest shortcast Tom tells us in more detail what his letter said and the asks that he made in it.
Related audio:
- Tom Langton On the JNCC Proposals (06:33)
- Robyn Murphy Epetition to the JNCC (03:40)
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!For years the National Trust (NT), a charity and one of the country's largest landowners, has allowed so-called 'trail hunting' to take place on its properties. In the lead up to the NT's next AGM in October this year, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) is urging the Trust's members to vote against licencing 'trail hunting' on National Trust land.
In this shortcast Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns at LACS, explains the situation and what he and LACS would like us all to do.
League Against Cruel Sports Stop 'trail hunting on National Trust land campaign
The War on Wildlife Project National Trust and Trail Hunting 101
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Ecologist Robyn Murphy has set up an epetition to help stop the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) downgrading protection for widespread species of amphibian and reptile by removing them from Schedules 5 and 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
Changing criteria to protect endangered species only is a move in the wrong direction. All reptile and amphibian species need more protection from human activity as populations are struggling.
We have seen a decline in all species for decades. If these changes go ahead, we could see species getting locally wiped out. Also a potential disease risk as people could sell and transport species.
We don’t want them all to become endangered in the first place.
Prevention is the best cure
- Petition: Keep all of our widespread species of amphibian and reptile from Schedules 5 and 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
(Also listen to ecologist and founder of Froglife Tom Langton discussing the JNCC's ludicrous proposals in a previous Guest Off the Leash )
Our tenth episode opens with a rolling discussion and personal anecdotes that take in unprecedented heat in North America, visiting Exxon-Mobil's HQ in Houston, peak air travel, commuting, the Eye of Fire, and the climate emergency. Charlie takes a chunk out of BBC Bitesize for writing that there were 'benefits' to climate chaos. In Hero and Villian we applaud Emily Williamson (and the Plumage Act) and Greenpeace UK for uncovering Exxon-Mobil's lobbying of the US government, and we take aim at Exxon-Mobil, Phil 'the Gurning Deer Killer' Spencer, and the Common Agricultural Policy for helping destroy Europe's biodiversity. In 60 Second Sell (or should that be '60 Second Shoutout'?) we hear from ecologist Robyn Murphy about her petition to the JNCC (about their proposal to remove protection from widespread species of reptiles and amphibians) and flag up 10-year-old Bailey Woozeer's petition to introduce a yearly fundraising day for animals in school.
Byline Times | Dominic Dyer The Government Must Face Down Big Business & Put Nature First
Channel Four Revealed: ExxonMobil’s lobbying war on climate change legislation
CNN Video See massive 'eye of fire' burn in Gulf of Mexico
The Guardian BBC removes Bitesize page on climate change ‘benefits’ after backlash
BBC News Emily Williamson: Centenary of victory to be marked with statue
Emily Williamson A statue for Emily Williamson
Greenpeace UK newsletter Unearthed
The Sun Location, Location, Location viewers switch off as ‘psycho’ trophy hunting vid of host Phil Spencer surfaces
BirdLife Europe EU countries take giant step towards killing nature
Robyn Murphy petition Keep all widespread species of amphibian and reptile in S5 & 8 of the WCA 1981
Bailey Woozeer petition Introduce a yearly fundraising day for animals in schools
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!Journalist Glen Black is a freelance writer interested in bloodsports, wildlife defence and land justice. He set up The Citro towards the end of last year. To quote from The Citro's website, "We cover news and issues from those on the frontline of the fights against wildlife persecution. The Citro’s aim is to communicate an authentic and comprehensive voice from hunt saboteurs, anti-bloodsport campaigners and other wildlife advocates. Everyone involved has connections with or direct experience of these struggles. "
The Citro website and Twitter feed
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!Dr Peter Li is China Policy Specialist at Humane Society International, associate professor at theUniversity of Houston-Downtown, and an expert on both the Yulin 'Festival' and the dog and cat meat trade. His research focuses on China's animal welfare policies and the country's animal protection movement at a time of rapid social transformation. Dr Li has published articles on China's wildlife law enforcement, culture and human-animal relations, factory farming and animal welfare, as well as wildlife farming and cruelty .
In this shortcast Dr Li strikes a notably optimistic tone, summing up questions from the media that he's been answering in the run-up to Yulin
- Please note, this shortcast does NOT contain graphic details and should be suitable for most listeners.
Humane Society International Dog Meat Trade
In our ninth episode, we talk about the decision by clothing manufacturer Canada Goose to stop using (Coyote) fur in its products. We discuss (in deliberately non-graphic terms) the dog meat trade and the Yulin 'festival' and focus on the role of activists in Asia: our first guest audio comes from Dr Peter Li, China Policy Specialist at Humane Society International, who has visited Yulin many times and offers an optimistic perspective. Charlie discusses grouse moor licencing - declaring it as 'licencing slaughter'. In Hero and Villian, Dominic nominates campaigner Emily Lawrence and the campaigners who pressured Canada Goose, Charlie nominates activists on the ground in East Asia. For our villains, Dominic tears into the UK Fur Industry, and Charlie slates Veolia UK for destroying precious nesting habitat next to Rainham Marshes. Finally, we highlight an event at Vale Wildlife Hospital, the War on Wildlife Project's management of an 'equipment fund' for monitors on the ground tackling the 'war on wildlife, and discuss our own ‘Guests Off the Leash’ plans.
The Guardian Canada Goose fashion brand to stop using fur by end of 2022
Humane Society International Dog Meat Trade
Blog on HSA website Chinese advocates lead the fight against Yulin’s dog meat trade
The War on Wildlife Project Grouse Moors | Licencing Slaughter
Dominic Mitchell Veolia UK destroys grassland habitat (on Twitter)
The Citro Journalism on the persecution and defence of wildlife
Vale Wildlife Hospital Open Day 2021
The War on Wildlife Project Equipment Fund
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here! Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, (CiWF), is an award-winning author, an ornithologist, a photographer, and a self-confessed animal advocate. For 25 years he has worked extensively on animal welfare issues, wildlife and the environment. He is a recognised thought leader, his lectures taking him across the globe to meet and exchange ideas with like-minded specialists, experts and individuals.
In May 2021 CiWF produced a position statement on Meat Alternatives, and it's that position that Philip discusses in this shortcast.
- Extract from CiWF's position statement: "Compassion in World Farming believes that meat alternatives are a vital part of the solution in ending factory farming and transforming the global food system to one that is healthy, humane and regenerative. Alternative protein innovations, whether plant-based meat analogues, cultured meat from stem-cells or proteins from fermentation, offer the potential to replace the consumption of meat from intensively farmed livestock and thereby reduce animal suffering."
Compassion in World Farming website
Philip Lymbery website
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
The Norwegian Government are planning to do 'sound experiments' on young Minke Whales captured as they move north to summer feeding grounds. This torture of whales is being done solely for the military and the oil and gas industries.
Vanessa Williams-Grey, Policy manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) - wrote a blog on the issue and has also given us a powerful shortcast to post here.
As well as slating the proposals - "there's so much wrong with these experiments" - Vanessa suggests actions we can take, and we have posted links below to a petition and an email address for Norwegian Prime-Minister Erna Solberg.
Change.org Tell Norway’s government to stop cruel whale experiments
Email Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg postmottak@smk.dep.no
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
In this shortcast Tom Langton discusses the call for evidence made by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) which could lead to the removal of legislative protection for many of the UK's amphibians and reptiles, and could "allow snake-bashing to become lawful again".
Tom Langton started out in conservation in the mid-1970s, joining BTCV mid week and weekend tasks removing pine trees from heathland areas in Dorset Hampshire and Surrey. This led him to meet the British Herpetological Society Conservation committee and work on protecting rare species such as sand lizard, natterjack toad and smooth snakes as a teenager and then its first honorary conservation officer. London based, he found himself in the room at pivotal moments in the development of nature conservation – not just the rare species amphibian and reptile conservation strategy, but the formation of Wildlife Link, the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act in 1981 and the birth of the Bern Convention in Strasbourg.
Having completed an ecology degree, he set up the Toads on Roads campaign while completing a survey of Greater London for Great crested newts amongst other duties for the Fauna and Flora Preservation Society. During the 1980s he worked to get the more widespread UK amphibians and reptiles protection under Schedules 5&8 of the 1981 Act, making snake bashing illegal and raising awareness of the steady erosion of ponds from neglect, pollution and infilling, Gaining at least some protection for reptiles from losses of open undisturbed heathland and scrub pushing and pushing with the help of English Nature until adder was finally protected.
He went on to found Froglife and the UK Herpetofauna Groups network including the Frog Mortality Project with ZSL, looking at the threat from introduced diseases in and around London and the south of England.
The recent news that nine species could be dumped off the protected list due to a change in criteria for listing was not going to escape his attention.
After the surprise by-election result at Chesham and Amersham, in our eighth episode Dominic discusses whether there is still a need for HS2 and the impact of loosening housing development controls. We highlight the new Australian trade deal and the animals at the heart of it. Our first guest audio comes from Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming, who puts the case for 'cultured meat'. Charlie talks about intensive agriculture and biodiversity loss, and whether people are ready for lab meat. In Hero and Villain, we first hear from Vanessa Williams-Grey, Policy Manager at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), on the shameful Norwegian Minke whale sound experiments, before Charlie nominates Jane Stevenson MP as Hero of the Week for her work on glue traps and Dominic thanks First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford for shutting the door on a Welsh badger cull. For our villains, Charlie slates the JNCC for potentially removing protection from Common Toads and Adders, and Dominic spanks Mark Zuckerberg for hunting wild boar while not doing enough to stop illegal wildlife trade on Facebook. Finally we outline our ideas for 'Guests Off the Leash' and thank Twitter use 'Me' for their supportive words on social media.
The Guardian Lib Dems win Chesham and Amersham byelection in stunning upset
HS2 Rebellion
The Guardian UK-Australia trade deal: what does it mean?
Compassion in World Farming Petition: Demand a Future Free from Factory Farming
Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) Shameful whale experiments in Norway – what we know and why they must stop (blog by Vanessa Williams-Grey)
Change.org Tell Norway’s government to stop cruel whale experiments
Email Norwegian Prime Minister, Erna Solberg postmottak@smk.dep.noGovernment backs Bill banning the use of glue traps for pest control
The War on Wildlife Project Wales | No to Badger Culling
Joint Nature Conservation Committee
Daily Mail Mark Zuckerberg spotted on Hawaii danger hike hunting wild boar
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Stuart Spray is an environmental journalist who has worked as an ecologist for Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Solway Heritage, The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) and The Scottish Wildlife Trust (SWT) – and he is – well, distinctly irritated by the goings-on down in Carbis Bay last week…
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Ecologist Tom Langton has been fighting the badger cull for years. He runs the Badger Crowd website and is crowdfunding after being given permission to take a challenge against the cull to the High Court - please support him at Help stop badger culling adding to England's Biodiversity catastrophe
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Tim Birch, Director of Nature's Recovery at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, is passionate about defending wildlife & restoring the natural world. He is a noted proponent of a vaccination programme to protect badgers from Bovine TB – in early 2018 he tweeted this about badgers and Michael Gove, who was Environment Secretary at the time: “It is incomprehensible Gove considering slaughtering badgers in low risk bovine TB areas in England. Why not support vaccination there? Mr Gove come and visit Derbyshire Wildlife Trust vaccination programme. We cost £80 per vaccinated badger. Shooting a badger costs £6000!”
Three years on and nothing has changed...
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
In this shortcast podcaster and campaigner Lisa Marley (who joined the team here at 'Off the Leash' shortly after making this shortcast) talks about her passion for the environment and her wonderful new podcast series 'Crimes Against Nature'.
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Hugh Warwick (aka Hedgehog Hugh) has been doing fantastic work to restore hedgehog populations here in the UK – and has shown heroic levels of persistence in keeping alive a Change.org petition to make hedgehog highways compulsory in new builds….Over 980,000 people have signed Hugh’s petition which is a staggering figure and it will be even more staggering when one million have signed it.
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Alan Davies, former Site Manager of the RSPB reserve at Conwy and an ultra keen birder who runs a travel company with partner Ruth called BirdwatchingTrips with The Biggest Twitch told us what he thought about the - ahem - 'person' who chainsawed down an Osprey nesting platform at Llyn Brenig in North Wales in May 2021.
‘Shortcasts’ are short standalone audio comments and statements from conservationists, campaigners, charities, authors and members of our audience. If it needs to be said – say it here!
Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, is reacting here to the surprising news that South Africa was shutting down its canned lion industry and how almost all trophy hunting has 'a canned element to it'.
In our seventh episode we focus on the missed opportunities and mixed signals of the G7 meeting in Cornwall, and Dominic discusses Boris Johnson's 'green' credentials. We look at who might take over at Defra (the government department with a huge influence over what happens to our wildlife and the environment) and what signals that would send. In our third discussion point Charlie explains the thinking behind the off the leash 'Community Bulletin Board' (and even sings a few lines of 'Imagine' to make a point), and our pre-record comes from environmental consultant and journalist Stuart Spray who gives us his take on the G7. In ‘Hero and Villian’ Dominic praises Sir John Randall, and Charlie the activist group Extinction Rebellion. Continuing our G7 theme, our villain this week is the governments who have never managed to fully achieve a single UN target on the climate and the environment. In ’60 Second Sell’ we flag up an equipment fund set up to help monitors/wounded badger patrollers etc, ecologist Tom Langton stretching his crowdfunder to fight the badger cull in court, and the remarkable fundraising work of Nick Moran and Johnny Rankin via Dovestep.
Amnesty International G7 support for pharma monopolies is putting millions of lives at risk
The Times How Carrie Johnson’s eco clique took control of No 10
The War on Wildlife Project Defra’s ministerial farming and shooting merry-go-round
Off the Leash Community Bulletin Board
Stuart Spray Environmental Journalist
Extinction Rebellion website
Sir John Randall A Birdwatcher in Parliament (podcast)
Convention on Biological Diversity Global Biodiversity Outlook 5
The Guardian World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature
The War on Wildlife Project Equipment Fund - next steps
Tom Langton on Crowd Justice Help stop badger culling adding to England’s Biodiversity catastrophe
Fund raising for Turtle Dove conservation Dovestep (on Twitter)
Webinar (June 17th) – ‘Voices for Badgers’ How can we end DEFRA’s ineffectual badger killing spree?
In our sixth episode we begin by discussing fur farming, Canada Goose, and the disgusting rabbit farms that T&S Nurseries are trying to set up. Dominic discusses an article he wrote for Byline Times looking at the poor performances of opposition parties on animal welfare. In a section on the so-called 'badger cull', Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Tim Birch talks in a pre-record about his shock and anger that the cull will carry on for another four years and Charlie discusses the co-opting of the word 'cull' by government, industry, and lobbyists. In 'Hero and Villian' Dominic praises Animals Asia founder Jill Robinson, and Charlie talks about the BadgerCrowd's Tom Langton (who provides a second pre-record on the 'cull' and crowdfunding for his upcoming Hgh Court Appeal). Dominic's villain this week is Cornwall's Carbis Bay Hotel and Charlie blasts irresponsible cat owners who allow their pets to decimate wildlife during the breeding season. In '60 Second Sell' we flag up a petition asking for a 'no take' of Spider Crabs and highlight two blogs as well as discussing Buglife's new 'bug splat' app. Finally, we discuss our plans to open up the Off the Leash Podcasts website as a 'community bulletin board'.
Refuse Planning for an Intensive Rabbit Farm in Cornwall - change.org/p/cornwall-council-refuse-planning-for-a-rabbit-farm-in-falmouth-cornwall
Animal Aid Investigators find appalling conditions at rabbit farm in Derbyshire
Byline Times Why the Conservatives Became The Animal Friendly Party
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Government approves badger culling to 2026 and ignores public consultation
The War on Wildlife Project Judicial Review over beaver killing licences
Animals Asia Animals Asia brings 101 bears home in largest ever operation of its kind
Tom Langton on Crowd Justice Help stop badger culling adding to England's Biodiversity catastrophe
BBC News G7 Cornwall: Protest against Carbis Bay building work
Change.org Support NO-TAKE of Australia's Iconic Spider Crabs during their Moulting Season
Simon Mustoe Blog Animal Impact
Stephen Thomson blog The Conservation Buddha
Buglife New bug splatter app to reveal more about insect populations
In our fifth episode we begin by discussing the two Brown Bears shot at Whipsnade Zoo after escaping from their enclosure and a new Born Free report looking at which species are kept by zoos. Dominic talks about the latest on the so-called badger cull. Charlie looks at the UK's biodiversity crisis in the light of a new report from the RSPB using data from the Natural History Museum. In 'Hero and Villian' we both praise Lisa Marley (who also provides this week's pre-record) and her excellent new podcast series 'Crimes Against Nature'. Dominic's villain this week is Norway's government for their plans to capture Minke Whales and torture them with sound experiments, Charlie's villains are the shooting lobbyists who have endlessly delayed replacing lead shot instead of dumping it into the environment. In '60 Second Sell' we flag up two important petitions ('Ban the Sale of Artificial Grass' and 'Ask the EU to recognise animal sentience') and finally we announce our plans to open up the Off the Leash Podcasts website as a 'community bulletin board'.
Whipsnade Zoo | BBC News: Brown bears shot dead after enclosure escape
Born Free | The Majority Of Species Kept In Charitable UK Zoos Aren’t Threatened With Extinction
The War on Wildlife Project | Biodiversity? The UK is losing it fast
Lisa Marley | Crimes Against Nature | True Crime Nature Podcast
Whale and Dolphin Conservation | Norway urged to abandon plans to experiment on captured whales
Change.org | WDC petition 'Tell Norway’s government to stop cruel whale experiments'
The War on Wildlife Project | Lead shot is poisoning Europe’s raptors
Government Petition | Ban the Sale of Artificial Grass
Care2 Petition | Tell the EU to recognise animals as sentient beings
Lauren S J Cook on Twitter
Off the Leash Podcasts 'community bulletin board' FAQs
In our fourth episode we begin by discussing Tuk's Law, a remarkable campaign that has made it mandatory for vets to check dogs and cats for microchips before considering euthanasia. Dominic makes a striking argument about measures to control the Covid-19 pandemic and measures to control Bovine TB. We reflect on the future of Environment Minister George Eustice, and look at how businesses might buy upland peat moors as part of a strategy to bring their carbon balance sheets down to net-zero. In 'Hero and Villian' we praise Hugh Warwick (aka Hedgehog Hugh, who also provides a pre-record) for his petition to ensure new builds include hedgehog highways and Sue Williams and Dawn Ashley the joint founders of the Tuk's Law campaign, and turn our ire on Bayer (the manufacturer of RoundUp) because 'weeds' are wild flowers, and on coffee chains for using disposable cups again. In '60 Second Sell' we flag up two important petitions (' Mini's Law' and 'Call for Nature's Recovery by 2030') and look forward to Virginia McKenna's online ninetieth birthday party. Oh, and apologise for an unfortunate typo that meant emails weren't getting through to us...
Tuk's Law - facebook.com/Tuks-Law-Scan-Me-716932295354918/
George Eustice's speech on "restoring nature and building back greener" on Gov.uk website
Dominic Dyer - The Independent: "Lessons learned from Covid-19 must spell the end of the badger cull"
Luke Steele - "A new space race for the future of the uplands is underway"
Brewdog is now Carbon Negative
Hugh Warwick's 'hedgehog highways' petition on Change.org and his personal website hughwarwick.com
Bayer - legacy cancer claims and class actions
Petition: Mini's Law (The Public and Animal Safety Bill 2021)
Petition: Call for Nature's Recovery by 2030 on e-activist.com
Born Free's Happy Birthday Virginia!
UK-based environmental and animal welfare campaigners Dominic Dyer and Charlie Moores are off the leash. In our third episode we begin by discussing the Queen's Speech and potential advances for animal welfare (including animal sentience, hare coursing, foie gras) and what was left out (the badger cull, the fishing industry, a commitment to ban snares). We look at trophy hunting (with a pre-record from Eduardo Goncalves, founder of the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting) and deer shooting at English Heritage's Wrest Park (kudos Bedfordshire Against Trophy Hunting fo that story). We discuss whether Jonathan Seed, the Conservative's candidate for Wiltshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, should have ever been put forward. We take a long look at grouse moor lobby group C4PMC and supply a long list of wildlife crime/raptor persecution to counter their propaganda. In 'Hero and Villian' we praise both Dr Paula Kahumbu and the individuals who worked to return a Minke Whale to the sea, and return to Jonathan Seed as our villain of the week. In '60 Second Sell' we flag up Salford Wildlife, Colin Marshall of livingworldeducation.com, Nicky Campbell's podcast (which Dominic guested on), and the Animal Welfare Party.
War on Wildlife Project | The Queen's Speech: Conservatives – the party for animal welfare?
The Guardian | Police commissioner candidate withdraws over drink-driving conviction
War on Wildlife Project | English Heritage, Trophy Hunting and Muntjacs
Bedfordshire Against Trophy Hunting
Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting
Raptor Persecution UK | Campaign for Protection of Moorland Communities: who’s involved?
Salford Wildlife Facebook Group
Colin Marshall | Living World Education
Wildlife Direct | Dr Paula Kahumbu wins prestigious Whitley Gold Award
Nicky Campbell Podcast | One of the Family 14 May 2021
Animal Welfare Party
In our second episode we discuss South Africa's decision to close down the 'canned lion' industry and the suffering uncovered at P&G Sleigh Pig Unit in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In ’60 Second Sell’ we flag up Mary Colwell's latest book 'Beak, Tooth and Claw: Living with Predators in Britain' and the WRATH 2021 March For Wildlife in Birmingham. In ‘Hero and Villain’ we say Happy Birthday to the nation's favourite 60-year-old naturalist, and both us and guest Alan Davies go to town on the chainsaw-wielding criminal who destroyed an Osprey nesting platform (additionally we discuss statutory agencies that dish out licences to kill fish-eating birds to protect fisheries). And for our good news story we discuss the Co-op's radical decision to cut the cost of their plant-based foods to match the price of its meat products.
National Geographic | South Africa plans to end controversial captive lion industry
Podcast with Prof Adam Hart | The Complex Issue of Trophy Hunting
Animal Equality investigation of P&G Sleigh Pig Unit in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Mary Colwell | 'Beak, Tooth and Claw: Living with Predators in Britain'
WRATH 2021 March For Wildlife
Chris Packham website
Wales | Osprey Platform cut down
Alan Davies - Birdwatching Trips with The Biggest Twitch
The Ferret | Revealed: the 130,000 wild animals licensed to be killed by wildlife agency
The Guardian | Co-op slashes the price of plant-based food in quest for net-zero emissions
In our first episode we discuss the upcoming Queen's Speech and animal welfare legislation, the slaughter of badgers for the dairy industry, and electing the next Police and Crime Commissioners on May 6th. In our first '60 Second Sell' we flag up Skydancer Day (hosted by Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin) and raptor persecution on grouse moors. And in 'Hero and Villain' we praise a Manchester Hunt Saboteur almost left for dead by badger baiters, and pour scorn on Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association who took three goes to kill an elephant before his guide stepped in and finished the poor animal off.
Dominic Dyer op-ed 'Fox hunting - political poison for the Tory Party'
Skydancer Day with Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin
Tackling raptor persecution - please read Raptor Persecution UK, consider supporting the RSPB Investigations Unit, please report any incidents to the police (or anonymously to Crimestoppers).
Go Fund Me page for Manchester Hunt Saboteur left for dead by badger baiters
Articles and podcasts on the 'badger cull' on The War on Wildlife Project
Tackling the badger cull - please consider supporting Badger Trust or a local pro-badger Wildlife Trust.
More information on Jonathan Seed, PCC candidate for Wiltshire, and PCC elections
'Trail hunting': The leaked Hunting Office webinars and the 'smokescreen' of so-called 'trail hunting'
Tackling illegal fox hunting - please consider supporting the Hunt Saboteurs Association or League Against Cruel Sports
A trailer for the new podcast by environmental and animal welfare campaigners Dominic Dyer and Charlie Moores. If you want to know what we're all about this will pretty much explain everything in just 48 seconds...