Raising awareness of eagle persecution at the Edinburgh International Book Festival

Many thanks to multi-award-winning author Gill Lewis for inviting us to share the stage with her at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival to raise awareness about eagle persecution on Scottish grouse moors.

Gill was there to present on a couple of her new books, including Eagle Warrior, which was inspired by the suspicious disappearance of golden eagle Fred in the Pentland Hills in 2018. She generously shared an hour-long slot so the audience could hear not just just about her book but also about the long-term killing of golden eagles on driven grouse moors and the Scottish Government’s apparent reluctance to do anything much about it.

[Photo by Olivia Robertson]

[Photo by Olivia Robertson]

Thanks also to Kirsten Lamb of publishers Barrington Stoke who turned up to the event with a big pile of postcards, pre-addressed to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, allowing audience participants to draw pictures of eagles and write a personal message to Ms Sturgeon urging her to take action.

We ended up with 42 postcards, some created by children as young as five years old and others created by a Professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh! It was brilliant to meet nine-year-old Freddie (now ten!) who’d previously drawn a postcard and had managed to get a response out of Ms Sturgeon, which is more than the rest of us had managed. Here are some of the cards drawn at the Festival:

At the end of the session a few of us decided to walk across the road to Bute House to hand deliver the cards but we were told at the door that we’d need to post them. The cards are all now individually stamped so hopefully someone in the First Minister’s office will make sure they land on the right desk. Perhaps Golden Eagle Species Champion Andy Wightman MSP should call in to her office and ask to see the cards and could put them on display somewhere at Holyrood, along with all the other cards that have been sent in in recent months.

Thanks again to Gill, Jane Sandell (Chair), Kirsten Lamb and everyone at the Book Festival who made us so welcome. Thanks also to the fantastically engaged audience who responded with such energy and purpose. We’re aware that some audience members were intent on taking cards back to their schools to encourage further participation.