Keep hedgehogs in mind on bonfire night
As many people gear up for bonfire and firework season, it is vital to remember wildlife at this time of year.
A bonfire pile looks like a five star hotel to a hedgehog seeking a safe and cosy winter home to hibernate in. They aren’t to know we plan to set light to it!
Taking just a few extra minutes to check for wildlife really does make a difference and helps save the lives of hedgehogs, other wildlife and pets.
The British Hedgehog Preservation Society has a three-step plan to help ensure the safety of hedgehogs on bonfire night:
1) MOVE the materials to clear ground on the day they are to be lit
2) CHECK the pile carefully just before striking that match
3) OFFER an escape route by only lighting from one side – this gives anything hidden in the heap one final chance to escape.
It is vital that all three steps are carried out to give hedgehogs the best possible chance to escape the danger of a lit bonfire.
Hedgehogs tend to hide in the centre and bottom two feet of the bonfire, which should be checked by gently lifting the bonfire section by section with a pole or broom.
Never use a spade or fork as these can stab them. Using a torch will help to see any signs of life, and listen for a huffing sound, which is the noise hedgehogs make when disturbed.
Fay Vass, chief executive, British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
Spread of ‘green’ energy is not all good for communities
As the invasive tentacles of Big ‘green’ Energy and its devastating infrastructure spread across rural Scotland we are regularly subjected to the politicians’ and industry’s ‘buzz words’ to persuade us that succumbing to the industrialisation of where we live is for the ‘greater good’. Greater good for whom?
Not Scotland and certainly not the people who are steamrollered out of the way by multinational companies with no connection or love for the areas they spear their industrial junk in to. ‘Green’ electricity doesn’t exist if it is produced at the expense of the environment, wildlife, communities and their peace and enjoyment of living in their homes.
‘Clean’ generation can’t exist if it relies on fossil fuels and massively increases demand for metal and rare earth mining, much of it unregulated and highly polluting, for its manufacture, construction, operation and back up.
Communities ‘hosting’ these massive ‘green’ power stations insinuates they were invited to do so and happily accepted. In the natural world hosts are needed by parasites who feed off them to survive. As rural people feel in despair, helpless and downtrodden by the Scottish Government backed ‘green’ invaders it is understandable where the word ‘host’ came from.
The phrases ‘just transition’ and ‘wind parks’ are about as ludicrous as they can be. Where is the ‘just transmission’ in areas where vast pylon lines and substations are threatened? Where is the amenity and pleasure in seeing monstrous rotating cash machines slicing through once peaceful and undisturbed vistas?
‘Net Zero’ is bandied about with no figures or data to back up what it means to us financially or environmentally. How much more industrialisation does Scotland need on its hills, mountains and in its rural communities and glens before we reach this elusive target?
Can our elected representatives just be honest and tell us the facts? We are not stupid and it is time they stopped treating us like we are.
The faux ‘green’ movement has been allowed to become all powerful and seemingly without accountability. They are in government, shaping policies and the beneficiaries of their actions are filling their shareholders’ bank accounts while our land and oceans are sacrificed on their warped altar of ‘sustainability’.
The deceptive cloak of ‘green’ attempts to hide the inconvenient truth of what is fast being revealed as anything but by those who are prepared to stand up and say no to the immoral and destructive policies being forced on them.
Our politicians need to pick a side. They are either with us or against us.
Lyndsey Ward, spokeswoman for Communities B4 Power Companies