Bitterly disappointed

The Safari has been shocked at the depths of inhumanity wrought upon the natural world in recent days culminating with the capture of of 250 Bottle Nosed Dolphins at the notorious Japanese village of Taiji. You can help make a difference by contacting your Japanese embassy and letting them know how you feel...politely please - we realise that may be hard to achieve but do your best, remember not everyone in Japan supports or condones these atrocities. And while you're on to them you might like to ask about their 'scientific' whaling ventures...like what are the scientific objectives of this season's expedition? Why can't the information be gathered by non-lethal means, there's plenty of techniques in the scientific world for non-lethal study? What are the minimum and maximum numbers of whales to be 'taken', how many of which species are required and how are those numbers arrived at? Why are the carcasses not returned to the ecosystem from which they were removed, ships of that size should have suitable laboratory facilities for research and tissue storage on board without the need to retain whole animals? Which peer reviewed journals will the resulting papers be published in, will there be an English translation of in Japanese?

We have been so upset by the events overnight (and all winter for that matter it's just that the pod captured last night was so large it's approximately the size of two resident UK populations , Cardigan Bay and Moray Firth combined!) that as much as we use our laptop and camera for trying to get you lot out there to look at experience and wonder at the fantastic natural world around us they are both made in Japan and have a tainted feel about them this morning.

Don't get us on the general overfishing and deliberate shark overfishing and the lunacy of shark baiting in Western Australia almost inviting another attack, hopefully they'll see sense there.

Then there's the almost annual rubbish from Scottish farmers about White Tailed Eagles carrying off children, that would explain the hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians banging on the door of the White Cliffs of Dover - they're not here to 'steal our jobs' they're refugees escaping the murderous talons on blood-thirsty marauding eagles - just vote No. Continuing the uplands theme surely it's about time that the farmers leaders, and we do have some sympathy for some of the farmers themselves, came to understand that the uplands of Britain are far more than sheep and Red Grouse. There should be crystal clear colourless streams complete with fish, trees, Juniper heath, active blanket bog, abundant and diverse wildflowers, Curlews and Golden Plover calling and a variety of raptors soaring overhead...for the most part sadly its just overgrazed denuded grassland or undergrazed impenetrable Bracken with the odd Meadow Pipit for company - it should be so much more than that. To help protect the raptors please sign this petition brought by an upland manager, with all you birders, naturalists and hill walkers out there it should have 75,000 signatures by now not just 7,500 - it's not just the raptors that are suffering the damage it's the entire ecosystem some of that damage has contributed to the recent flooding. In reality we all know that the flooding was caused by gay marriage - WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE ON???

Add to these the shameful re-introduction of fur at Harvey Nichols - surely a retrograde step but again it shows where there's profit to be made there's motive to push basic human decency straight out of the window. The animal shown in the header pic is a Raccoon Dog, an animal of eastern Asian origin but introduced into northern and eastern Europe solely because of the fur trade and is now classed as an invasive alien causing ecological problems for the native wildlife - oh great stuff; one despicable 'trade' two obscene side effects.

Its time to introduce this way of reckoning rather than only counting the monetary beans. This takes far more important stuff into account but the money men will no doubt ignore it or worse, discredit it as leftist clap-trap

Much more locally there has been disgraceful vandalism on two of our favorite reserves one by bone-fide numpty youths the other more worryingly by wildlife photographers exposing a Schedule 1 bird's nest site so they can get better pics, maybe they are worse than the numpty youths cos they really ought to know better! Vandalism on  a much larger scale is about to wrought by our beloved government in the name of progress or 10 minutes off the journey time between to fairly close cities. These woodlands have been present since the Mona Lisa was painted and very probably since the invasion by Julius Caesar or even Celtic chieftains about 500 years before that. Given that the Mona Lisa is only 77 x 55 cm = 4235sq cm and is worth about £775 million and that Ancient Woodland is older and even harder to reproduce it's equivalent worth comes out at an estimated £18 BILLION per hectare and don't forget that woodland has three dimensions not just two - stick that in your pipe and smoke it Praterson!

But it's all OK the footy's on as normal and we've got a new smart phone due anyday now; what's to worry about?

Gawd that lot took some one fingered typing and no photo ops today to lighten the mood - sorry, the only birds in the birdless desert today were three Greenfinches early doors and nothing at all since! Nothing on the stealth-cam for you either.

No idea if any of those on-line petitions do any good but if they are a better way of expressing the democratic process we'll keep signing away just in case.
Where to next? Hopefully tomorrow will be a mmore productive and positive day but with the likelihood of more bad news to come from Taiji don't bank on it...get emailing those ambassadors!
In the meantime let us know what's getting your goat in your outback.