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Scottish ministers have been privately urged to back plans for a golf course on a coastal wildlife site. This has been condemned as “backdoor lobbying that tries to bypass the rules”.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Wildlife lowlight of the week
(671 posts)-
Posted 3 months ago #
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The cob was nowhere to be seen when I took this photo by the canoeing lake at Musselburgh Lagoons yesterday :(
There was, however, a good number of adult swans, plus a few adolescents from last year, swimming around at the mouth of the Esk. Which was nice.
I just wonder whether there might be a link between this latest dog-attacks-swan incident and the goings on at Blackford Pond last year and the year before, which ended up with the pond swanless despite a whole new family being imported from Granton last summer. I'm thinking along the lines of some idiot going around setting their XL Bully or whatever at local wildlife in an attempt to compensate for their personal inadequacies?
Posted 1 month ago # -
See also: Straiton Pond, which similarly has had its swan population reduced time to time, including recently, by uncontrolled dogs, uncontrolled fishing lines and goodness knows what else.
However, I understand that adult swans can themselves be quite aggressive towards their young, a bit "You're old enough to leave home now. Get out and don't come back".
Posted 1 month ago # -
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A funding deal to raise £100m from private investors for urgently needed nature restoration in Scotland has fallen through without the Scottish parliament being told.
The Guardian has learned that Aberdeen, the investment firm, decided to withdraw from a partnership with the agency NatureScot to raise at least £100m for conservation projects from commercial and private investors late last year.
Scottish government ministers did not disclose that when the Highlands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant tabled a question at Holyrood asking for an update on what was known as the nature investment partnership.
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Posted 1 month ago # -
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Sepa gave 400 Scottish lochs 'good' environmental status but only checked 54 of them
Lochs are classified as having a “good” environmental status based on samples from other lochs many miles away – and as much as a decade old – prompting concerns that environmental regulation isn’t “fit for purpose”.
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Posted 1 month ago # -
Further to my post of 2 weeks ago, I stumbled across this article in the East Lothian courier, dated 30th March this year:
Swan left with 'serious injuries' after dog attack
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The spokesperson encouraged people to keep their pets under control and highlighted that this was not the first time a swan was injured.
They said: “In 2024, the male swan died from a head trauma injury while protecting the nest when people snatched the eggs and smashed them.
“After his death, the female hatched and reared a single cygnet which was killed by a loose dog after three weeks, dying in a ranger’s hands before it could be collected by the SSPCA for emergency care.
“Last year, the swans failed to hatch a single egg after nine attempts to nest were disturbed by people taking eggs and smashing them and, on one occasion, a loose dog removing an egg from the nest.”
(FWIW, the penalty for such offences is up to six months in choky and an unlimited fine.)
Posted 1 month ago #
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