It’s miraculous! “The critically endangered European eel was found near Coventry city centre” 😟 Just look at the state of that river bed.

LOL

I missed it, again.

Oh yes.

Thanks for that link. A permanent ban, it says. Some part of this Government isn’t so bad, then.

Isn’t the sea a commons? (I checked and it’s the high seas that are “Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction”) Maybe the Govt doesn’t require the water-company to keep the rivers and seas disease-free - they did reduce environmental standards, at least once. So legally they might be correct. But in reality, a shitty company doing the dirty work of a shitty government.

I’ve lived in this place on the South Wales coast, a little inland, for the past 20+ years. There’s always been a large colony of the common type of gull living nearby. Someone maybe stopped feeding them recently (past 2 years) as they now perch on our house, and generally come a lot closer than they used to. There are many hundreds of them, which you can plainly see when they do their mass spiralling. I find their calls, especially when they’re all at it at once, deeply affecting and lovely.

So something has changed, for sure, but I can’t say what. The impression of there being more in my neck of the woods might be because colonies from elsewhere can’t find food so have moved here 🤷‍♀️ .

Also, what was that in the video about sand-eels not being fished any more?

At the end of that article it says 30% of the two species tested had antibodies for the avian 'flu. I’m staying with that idea.

I don’t see how monitoring the many kinds of damage caused by road traffic would do an ounce of good: everyone loves their cars, and our infrastructure - not just England’s - relies on fossil-fuels use.

O cleverest Bot, A soul you have not ;-)

Shameless jockeying. I’m sure I signed a petition not long ago to stop this sort of thing.

😭

Sadly not. I have technical problems: the phone’s on its last legs and doesn’t want anything to do with graphics, and it and the laptop have stopped talking to each other anyway.

Well thanks! I detect some Insect Fear in the article: " If it feels like they’re everywhere, don’t worry - you’re not alone! Ladybirds are coming into our homes to find shelter for the winter and there’s not much we can do about it, according to an expert." I’m thinking I should go out and fetch the one(s) in the garden inside, now it’s rather chilly. [i edited this, adding quote marks after ‘according to an expert’.]