Chorley and District Natural History Society Forum

Today for the first time since 30.06.2013 there is a tractor cutting and shredding all the vegetation on the former quarry, marking ecological disaster for a site that has been developing as a wildlife haven.

All the ground nesting birds including Skylark, Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler and Grasshopper Warbler will have their nests and young destroyed. Also gone is the hundreds/perhaps thousands of Burnet Moth caterpillars/chrysalis which the Cuckoos have been feeding on.

It will also destroy a good many voles which the local Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Kestrel and Common Buzzard have been feeding on.

Any invertebrates including Frogs Toads and Newts will also be destroyed together with moths and Butterflies and because many wildflowers including the orchids I reported yesterday have not yet seeded it will encourage weed species to flourish to their detriment and remove the flowers that butterflies and other insects feed on.

The gulls and corvids are having a feeding spree.

Why could they not have waited until September when the bird nesting season is over!!

Who was cutting the area, who owns the land ?

The land is owned by Clive Hurt (Plant Hire) and looks like its being cut by a private Contractor.

Len, read this https://www.gov.uk/guidance/wild-birds- ... d-licences and then report them to the Police as a criminal offence

Sadly money seems to rule in this country .

Neville,

Unfortunately there is a get out clause under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act as follows:

2. Notwithstanding anything in the provisions of section 1 or any order made under section 3, a person shall not be guilty of an offence by reason of —

(c) any act made unlawful by those provisions if he shows that the act was the incidental result of a lawful operation and could not reasonably have been avoided.

That's correct Len, but if the contractors are informed at this point of the above legislation then they would have to desist, as they can now reasonably avoid committing an offence.

No sign of anybody there today.