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  1. A

    Scottish Independence

    Rarities aside, what are the regular breeders/winterers that would have been impossible in England in the last 40/50 years? Capercaillie and Scottish Crossbill definitely (though I wonder if the latter could actually be found/claimed if someone looked hard enough), but haven't there been one or...
  2. A

    Scottish Independence

    So people on the Western Isles, Shetland, Aberdeenshire, and Dumfries are the same (politically and socially) as each other and as those in Glasgow, Berwickshire, and Argyll? Glasgow is fundamentally different in attitude to Edinburgh (just ask them!), so where you get this idea of 'a people'...
  3. A

    Scottish Independence

    But what are the chances of the SNP especially (or whoever runs an independent Scotland) giving Shetland a referendum, as the UK has for Scotland?
  4. A

    Scottish Independence

    Do you know how offensive many people find this sort of 'us people and those people' divisive garbage that Scottish Nationalists spout? They talk like English people are some kind of lumpen Home Counties voting block, whereas Scottish people are a united tribe with a social conscience. Scotland...
  5. A

    Scottish Independence

    When the three major parties and the Governor of the Bank of England (i.e the regulator and backer) say that there categorically wont be a currency union, that sounds like a non-negotiable position statement. But when Salmond says 'yes there will', does that sound like a reasonable plan? After...
  6. A

    Scottish Independence

    Great, 18 months of uncertainty and argy-bargy, while the global markets and companies withhold investment, or take it elsewhere, and the pound plummets because of months of nobody knowing what the hell is going to happen. Higher cost of borrowing, less investment, and heaven help those wanting...
  7. A

    Scottish Independence

    So Labour is an 'English party' huh? Yet you say it relies on its Scottish MPs? Sounds like a strong union party to me. But please try and refrain from the anti-English political rhetoric - maybe that explains why people further south wont serve you?! But never mind all this - the real question...
  8. A

    Scottish Independence

    Currently you can demand that they be accepted. The only reason some staff don't accept them is that they are not familiar with them, and you just have to 'educate' them. But after a currency split they would be about as useful in England as Euros. I virtually never see Scottish notes in the...
  9. A

    Scottish Independence

    They print sterling, with a different picture on it. In the event of a Yes vote, Carney says that his Bank of England wont go into a currency union. So, sooner or later, those banks would have to recall every coin and note (be it Clydesdale or otherwise), and print/mint something else that...
  10. A

    Scottish Independence

    Simple economies of scale. Smaller economies have smaller budgets, and a smaller pool of resources, facilities and talent. Places like St Kilda and other remote archipelagos could be more vulnerable to Edinburgh priorities in trying to rebalance and reestablish an economy in teh face of such...
  11. A

    Scottish Independence

    Froma bit of googling, I think about 7% of the population of Scotland are born in England, and another 7% born abroad (about 400,000 each, out of a total population of 5.3 million). I don't know about Wales and NI, but presumably it's small. 17.2% of the overall population are under 16, so...
  12. A

    Scottish Independence

    I agree to some extent, but there's a general election in 2015, and it is quite possible that the national (English) mood will be to back whoever balances the best deal for England and the worst terms for Scotland. I imagine that will also be the case in Scotland, going by the tone of the...
  13. A

    Scottish Independence

    The Universities element (where a lot of conservation work is done) is interesting, and one thing which the article doesn't touch upon is the funding aspect. Currently Scotland can get away with charging English/Welsh/NI students full fees because it is an 'internal' affair (not between EU...
  14. A

    Scottish Independence

    Maybe not insurmountable, but a much bigger headache than it otherwise might be, and probably more expensive (due to duplication, licenses, admin, legalities, facilities, funding inefficiencies etc.) and complicated (Governmental and departmental whims/priorities/competition) and so less viable...
  15. A

    Scottish Independence

    Think of Horse Chestnut Leaf-miner moth - got here naturally, treated as invasive alien. Also 'continental' cormorant sinsensis - got here naturally, subject to control orders as an invasive. A lot depends on perception, and the laws within national boundaries. Also moving species within a...
  16. A

    Scottish Independence

    It could also have conservation repercussions, with regards to alien/native species classifications. If a species is native in Scotland (say, Crested Tit) but then becomes introduced in England, it then becomes a non-native species in rest-of-Britain, and is an invasive alien. Similarly...
  17. A

    Scottish Independence

    Funding is a parochial matter, and the RSPB, BTO, BOU, BOURC, SOC, UK Govt and SNP are parochial organisations by definition - hence the money generated from membership fees or taxation or whatever tends to be spent among those who generated it. That's how the world works. So funding to the BOU...
  18. A

    Scottish Independence

    I think many could have a problem with membership fees being spent propping up relict populations of Crested Tit or Capercaillie in a foreign country. RSPB don't spend money on these fairly widespread species in e.g. Spain, so people may well resent their money being used to subsidise Scottish...
  19. A

    Article about Gannets caught as food off Mauritania by Chinese trawlers

    Vastly different scale, I think, with the guga hunt having a quota of 2,000, and this one ship having an estimated cargo of 95,000! That's half a century worth of guga hunts on one Chinese-registered ship. And also a different demographic (taking chicks is the 'safest' way to harvest a bird...
  20. A

    Article about Gannets caught as food off Mauritania by Chinese trawlers

    Very surprised nobody has commented on this. A big chunk of this slaughter is going to include British Gannets, which winter in that area. So the Chinese are effectively harvesting our Gannet population, as the UK holds more than half of the world's breeding birds. Previous thread...
  21. A

    More madness on Malta

    That's pretty uncalled for. It's a debate, right? A forum? So what's wrong with talking about why the conservation organisations have been banging on about this for 30 years with absolutely zero progress? If anything, things have gone backwards (in that they now have EU legal justification for...
  22. A

    More madness on Malta

    So why wont they be voting in the referendum?
  23. A

    More madness on Malta

    But unless it can be shown otherwise, then it can be stated. And that's how Malta keeps its EU permission. I don't like it any more than you do, or anyone else on here, but there's no point in pretending that we can clearly or even probably link spring hunting in Malta to population declines...
  24. A

    More madness on Malta

    Where's your references for that? I have in front of me State of Europe's Common Birds 2008, which gives stats for Turtle Dove since the 1980s: Western Europe = 80% decline Central and Eastern Europe = 48% decline Southern Europe = 2% decline. So in the region of Malta, and the area of most...
  25. A

    More madness on Malta

    But 'the people' don't seem too bothered about it on Malta. One of the articles John Cantelo linked to suggested that a referendum on spring hunting would produce a landslide for the hunters. So I'm not convinced when people say hunters are a minority. They seem to be a majority of people who...
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