[El Annie]

http://www.habitat.org.uk/news1.htm


Man pleads guilty to stealing wild hawk...................
A 37-year-old Huyton man pleaded guilty to stealing rare birds from the wild. Leonard O'Connor, of St Anne's Road, could face six months in jail after being found with a live Goshawk in his home in February. He pleaded guilty to taking two Goshawks chicks from a nest in Derbyshire, in 2000, and also to possessing parts of a Goshawks tail as well as producing false documents to try and get the Goshawks onto a legal register. The court heard yesterday (Monday, December 16) O'Connor had taken the chicks and kept one of them as a pet and police had found a diary in his home detailing how he had reared the birds including notes on its first kill.
More information - icLiverpool

£50,000 to save Uist hedgehogs..........................
In a remarkable act of Christmas charity, animal-lovers have raised £50,000 to save 5,000 hedgehogs condemned to death on the Scottish island of Uist - but it is still not enough. The animals are due to be culled early in the New Year on the orders of Scottish National Heritage because they eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds but so far, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society has raised £50,000 to relocate them to the mainland. But, said the society in a statement at the weekend, although the appeal was successful "we need more to relocate as many hedgehogs as possible."
More information -
Daelnet
Herald

BTO appoint new House Sparrow Officer...................
The British Trust for Ornithology is boosting its research into the decline of the House Sparrow by appointing Rosie Cleary as their new House Sparrow Officer. She will work with thousands of volunteer sparrow counters across the country to try to ascertain the reasons for major declines of this red-listed species of conservation concern. The appointment of Rosie Cleary as the BTO’s first House Sparrow Officer will greatly increase the capacity of the Trust to look at what is happening to sparrows across the country. Rosie is keen to recruit volunteers to help her. She needs information from: Gardens where there are now fewer House Sparrows than there were. Gardens where (for the moment) there are still flocks of sparrows.
More information - The British Trust for Ornithology

El Annie