A new collaborative initiative is about to launch, aimed at raising awareness and funds to help protect the 67 vulnerable bird species currently listed on the UK Red List.
The brain-child of Kit Jewson (@yolobirder), the Red Sixty Seven book draws together 67 writers and 67 artists who have all donated their time and expertise so that 100% of the book profits can be shared between the RSPB and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) to further their work on red-listed species.
You can read more about the book on the BTO website (here) and there’s a good write-up in the Guardian (here).
You can pre-order the book (£19.99) here and it’ll be shipped just after Valentine’s Day on 14 February 2020.
You can buy other Red Sixty Seven merchandise here
You can get a preview of the 67 artworks and find out who has written a piece for which species here
The Red List (and thus the Red 67 book) includes three raptor species – white-tailed eagle, merlin and hen harrier:
Show some love, order your copy now!
Raptor Persecution UK 
Still have mixed views on RSPB so will give this a miss.
I have some mixed views of both organisations, nothing is ever perfect but without RSPB there would be no investigations teams, nor some much needed reserves or policy pressure on governments both sides of the border. BTO took money from Songbird Survival for the last Atlas and seems in bed with the dark side on several projects. However I remain a not uncritical member of both despite their drawbacks they remain much better than the statutory agencies and at the forefront of both research critical for conservation and in the fight for habitats and our wildlife.
Likewise – Pip
I can go with those sentiments. ACW.
Same – you can always find something negative in everything but I always think that the negatives with such organisations are massively outweighed by the positives. Where would we be without them?
No-one can support every worthy initiative so it is fair enough that you should choose to opt out of this one if you feel the RSPB doesn’t entirely live up to your expectations. I would agree with Paul though and suggest that if we didn’t have either the RSPB or the BTO then nature in this country would certainly be in a far worse situation than it already is.
Of course it would be nice to see the RSPB getting rather more ‘bite’ in its approach to certain issues and it can and should do so but realistically it is never going to be able to be as outspoken or as nimble as a small independent group such as RPUK or independent individual campaigners. This is balanced by the fact that its resources, expertise and, yes, relationship to the establishment, enable it to do important things that smaller, more radical groups or individuals cannot do. In my opinion the ecology of nature conservation has niches for various kinds of campaigners and organisations and all fulfil an important role and complement each other. We need them all. This certainly does not mean that we should not be critical of the RSPB when it appears to be complacent or timorous or just plain misguided but I strongly believe that it deserves our continued support if we wish to see a future for wildlife in this country.