Tree Planters At Risk Of Snake Bite And Arrest

 Aberdeen City, Environment, Opinion  No Responses »
Apr 112012
 

With thanks to John F Robins. 

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Aberdeen City Council have been warned that Council employees and volunteers could be bitten by adders during a tree planting day planned for the end of this month.

If they avoid being bitten by snakes the planters could still end up being prosecuted if nesting birds are disturbed during the event on April 28th, right in the middle of the nesting season.

John Robins of Animal Concern Advice Line (ACAL) states:

“I could not believe it when I learned that the tree planting was being organised for the time of year when both snakes and nesting birds are most likely to be active on Tullos Hill. The Council is supposed to be creating a wildlife woodland yet they are destroying an existing excellent wildlife habitat, killing deer – and now risk disturbing protected birds and reptiles at the most sensitive time of year.

“I’ve alerted the Grampian Police Wildlife Crime Officer, RSPB, SSPCA and some reptile conservation groups to the situation. I’ve also contacted The Woodland Trust who are involved in the project and should know better than plant trees at this time. I urge Aberdonians who want to protect wildlife to boycott this tree planting session.”

ACAL has opposed the Aberdeen Tree for Every Citizen project for over a year since it emerged that roe deer were to be culled to avoid the expense of installing deer fences and tree guards. It has since been suggested that due to its poor soil and exposed situation Tullos Hill is not a suitable place to plant trees.

John Robins again:

 “The more I learn about this the more I am convinced that Aberdeen City Council have no idea what they are doing. I wouldn’t employ them to manage a window box, far less a woodland project on this scale. You can probably spot the ACC delegate at a COSLA meeting. Just look for the person wearing a Jesters hat or a dunce’s cap.”

Old Susannah No. 73 – Terrorism Is Over Special!

 Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

Old Susannah comments on UK Government proposals to access emails between all citizens in the name of preventing Terrorism.

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There will be dancing in the streets, celebrations at public squares (as long as they are vibrant, dynamic and have connectivity), and rejoicing all ‘round: the government has found the way to stop terrorism! Result! Yes, the government is getting rid of terrorism. And your basic right to privacy.

Why didn’t we think of it earlier, we are all wondering. Yes, the Government has decided it has the right to record each and every email you receive and send. And that is how terrorism will be stopped once and for all.

I’m happy to give up my private life forever in order for government snoops to be able to catch the bad guys. I’m thrilled to be treated like a new prison inmate every time I want to get on a plane. I’m sure you are as well.

So what if there are the occasional cases of disabled and/or elderly people being strip searched for having mobility aids. If the occasional frightened child is separated from its parents to be frisked, then so be it. It’s the price we pay for having the fantastic safe and secure lifestyles we have.

It was said by an American founding father, Benjamin Franklin that ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ How times have changed.

You could also wonder how secure your business secrets will be when they are intercepted by unknown government spooks. Do people ever mis-use information? Hardly ever. The slightly paranoid J Edgar Hoover kept files on American citizens, and would occasionally blackmail people into doing his bidding. Liberty and Justice for all, except if the FBI wanted you.

That would never happen here. Of course a senior police official was recently found guilty of accessing data on an ex-partner of his right here. I’m sure this was just a one-off, no need to trouble ourselves about it.

It’s also a very good thing that terrorists would never use the Royal Mail. Except for those charming people who sent bombs to Celtic’s manager, that is. No one would ever think of using the post for smuggling, planning terrorist attacks or anything else we should concern ourselves with. Phew!

It would be terrible if there were any civil disobedience over this great move. For instance nothing is stopping you from going to an internet cafe, and creating a free email account under the name of john smith. If enough people did this, and only sent or checked emails at internet cafes, then this little snooping plan of our kind government’s would be toast.

Old Susannah thinks this great scheme might run into a few wee problems anyway. For one thing, I keep getting all sorts of ‘spam’. Multiply all the emails selling you drugs or which try to get your personal details out of you by the country’s population, and you’ll need a bank of computer storage just to keep the spam.

Perhaps we should all go back to sending letters.

If anyone wanted to sign a petition against this great piece of legislation, although I can’t think why they would, the online petition is at http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_big_brother_law_a/?tta

Celebrity Blog from Cattie the Millipede and Milly the Caterpillar

Greetings everyone from our safe house in Torry, where we were airlifted to after our beautiful meadow home on Tullos Hill was destroyed – for a LibDem election pledge. We are surviving the cold snap OK, because we have lots of dead leaves to hide under to keep warm. (gardeners should always leave some dead leaves or other mulch around to keep plants – and creatures like us – warm).

We are even more worried now about our old friends on Tullos Hill. The deer have nowhere near as much gorse to shelter in and it’s cold. The birds lost lots of their shelter too when the gorse was ripped out. We are fine – but we wish our friends were, too.

Election Notes

The Labour Party have announced they would – end the Granite Web in its tracks if elected! Rather than borrowing £140,000,000 to put concrete ramps over our garden, chop down 250 year-old trees to turn into wood chip, they seem to want to spend time and energy on helping people.

Gerry Brough, city employee who has generously volunteered to work on the project is said to be incandescent with rage. So no change there then.

Tullos Hill And St Fitticks: A Photo-essay

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

Suzanne Kelly with rubbish at the entrance and dangerous industrial waste from the gorse clearance mid March 2012.
By Suzanne Kelly.

By now you probably heard of the environmental carnage on Tullos Hill. It seems likely deer have been killed – despite the public’s wishes, the improbability of trees growing, and the bad science behind the cull. Gorse removal seems to have happened until the last week in March – the cost to insect life, birds and mammals is incalculable.

On my first visit the day after the bulldozers (or whatever trucks were used) cleared a vast swathe of the hill; I was shocked at the quantity of wildflowers, particularly foxgloves which had been ripped apart or thrown aside. I saw several caterpillars dead and dying. I saw a heck of a lot of domestic and industrial debris – and even more rock.

There seemed to be new patches of gorse missing on every visit I made, despite laws meant to protect our dwindling bird population.

What once was filled with life
I certainly heard far fewer birds than ever before in the years I’d visited the hill – no surprise though, as their gorse habitat was gone. Few deer have been seen since the hunting season opened.

Two men with shotguns were seen in the St Fittick’s area on foot on the night of the 31st March, and one of the hill’s keen observers saw a silver Range Rover several times driving to areas where there were deer.

Sadly, with the help of an acquaintance I made on the hill last week, I was shown this skeleton and nearby fresh deer fur of what would have been a young deer. It reminded me how comparatively small these gentle creatures are.

Trees on tullos hill. The few that have grown are being left to be strangled in their tubes by weeds.
I for one doubt very much this poor thing starved; it was in woodland and could have eaten leaves and plants.

Was it killed by hungry foxes? Not impossible.

The tree scheme supporters will say that ‘deer have no natural predators’ – an environmentalist will tell you that foxes are known to take the young or infirm (the roe deer usually live 6 or 7 years maximum).

I just hope against hope that this fairly fresh skeleton was not from a deer which had been wounded. This happens all the time. Deer are shot, and depending on where they’ve taken the hit, they can run away to slowly, painfully, bleed out and die, trauma and shock making the suffering worse. Deer are by no means always quickly destroyed.

Skull and spine of a young or small roe deer on Tullos Hill. It wasn't there before the season to hunt started
Shooting, we are told, is far more preferable than tranquilising and moving them, because up to 50% might die. (I however imagine it would be far more preferable to be put to sleep than injured and die of pain, shock and blood loss – or while wounded be eaten alive by a fox).

If indeed the law we now has says it is illegal to tranquilise and move the creatures, the law is in need of change.

It begs the question: is this law and the new laws about the number of deer an area can support creations of a pro-hunting mentality?

The answer can only be yes. I remembered that the reason for the cull was it was the cheapest way to protect the trees – at least Aileen Malone, Pete Leonard and Ian Tallboys said so. Cheaper still would have been to stop this scheme or put the trees elsewhere.

Inside a fully intact tube is nothing but grass
The taxpayer is picking up the tab, no one is saying it is ‘cost neutral’ any longer, and the city had to repay £43,800 for the previous failure on Tullos Hill. This state of affairs is unacceptable. There are trees on Tullos remaining from the pathetic first planting. However, the saplings which are there are totally neglected.

Plenty of tree guards are totally intact. I saw an intact tree guard, and carefully rolled it open – the tree inside was choked by weeds. I left it as I found it. No deer was responsible for this and the many similar failures. Just human negligence

St Fitticks sign.
I note that the more robust tubes were used at the St Fittick’s site – this undoubtedly because anyone with common sense could tell the salt spray and the powerful winds from the North Sea would stop any trees from growing (could this be why there isn’t already a forest on St Fitticks?).

Virtually all of the tubes at St Fitticks are still standing and are undamaged by deer. Anyone who says differently should show me where there has been any deer browsing at St Fitticks.

Mr Tallboys, the ranger, had put together a presentation which shows a picture of deer standing amid the St Fitticks tubes.

Deer do move in that area. However, there is plenty of evidence for there being vandalism – and for the city and its rangers totally neglecting to protect and care for the trees it did plant.

Well maintained tree planting area at St Fitticks 1st April 2012.
I looked into many of the St Fitticks tree guards, all of which were undamaged. There are quite a number of tiny oak trees which had never even made it one third of the way up the tube. There were some tubes which were completely, utterly empty of any tree.

The entire site is choked by weeds and rocky soil is again an issue (although not as bad as on Tullos). The deer simply did not, could not damage the St Fitticks trees: the evidence suggests that the killer was neglect and ignorance as well as weeds and weather.

There will probably be deer deaths on the road – about a third of the gorse they would have sheltered in on the hill is gone.

No deer damage - only weeds and neglect
It is not too late to bring this thing to a halt, investigate those involved in forcing this scheme on an unwilling local population, and it’s not too late to undo the damage.

Halt the scheme, save taxpayer money, and continue to support the meadowlands scheme.

The trees did not grow before. They are not going to grow now.

Coming soon – an article on the new tree scheme / deer cull developments

Torry/Ferryhill Candidate On Green Party Indifference

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Information  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

Suzanne Kelly, Independent candidate for Torry/Ferryhill in Aberdeen City’s Council elections, speaks out against the Green Party for its apathy over the controversial Tullos Hill roe deer cull, in light of the Greens fielding a candidate in Torry/Ferryhill.

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When I was with the Green Party, I explained clearly on several occasions what was wrong with this cull and Aberdeen City’s ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme.

However, the Greens decided that the party was not going to take a stand on this, one of the most controversial environmental and democratic issues in the city.

Some of the longer-serving Green party members sympathised with me, but there were newer members who didn’t see what the big deal was with the city shooting these deer.

I couldn’t believe it, as I’d previously explained and written in detail that the trees are unlikely to grow and the cull is flawed. People wrote to the Greens to ask for their stance on the matter, but still the party didn’t want to stand up against this cull.

I have been campaigning actively to stop this specific roe deer cull for over a year. The Scottish SPCA branded the Tullos cull ‘abhorrent and absurd’ for killing deer to protect trees which don’t even exist yet. Many other animal welfare groups oppose this cull, and thousands of people have signed petitions against it.

Three community councils condemned the consultation and cull last year, and more recently these councils sent an open letter to the city, asking for the scheme to be halted. I don’t believe the trees will grow, as the hill’s soil is very scant and the ground cleared for the planting is extremely rocky, and is covered in industrial and domestic waste (there is a soil report by government officials which confirms this).

Three community councils object to the cull and the city’s so-called ‘consultation’ on the tree scheme. The consultation did not mention deer at all (but it did cover rabbits and rabbit fencing). The consultation also failed to say that a massive 89,000 trees would be put on the hill. No one in the area wants it – and even though the city has started, the opposition will continue.

I’d been writing about this issue for some time, and The Green Party knew that the cull was specifically to plant trees and not for deer welfare issues. I am so very disappointed in the Green Party over this issue.

The Aberdeen Green Party is running a candidate against me in the May elections. I have a chain of emails between members of the Green Party and me from this time last year. Some of the Greens’ comments include:

“I don’t think the party as such should have a position. I certainly don’t want to get involved in this”

“I don’t understand why these 30 deer (or whatever number it actually is) are so different and attracting so much attention.”

“Also within a relatively few miles of Tullos are large numbers of cattle and sheep that will be killed so people can eat them. We do not have a policy of enforced vegetarianism.”

This last statement was particularly, amazingly patronising, and the remark is completely off the point of why these deer are to be killed.

There was no way I was going to stay in the Green Party after this. For a party calling itself ‘green’ to stand idly by while a meadow and its wildlife was destroyed was beyond the pale. How they can possibly stand for election in Torry and expect me to stay silent about their stance is something I can’t understand either.

I have previously explained to a local member and a national member that I would have to publicise how the Greens view Tullos Hill. I did give fair warning that I would go public about how they decided to look the other way concerning Tullos.

I’m happy to have competition in this election, but people need to know the Greens could have helped when it mattered – and didn’t. If I stay quiet, some people will simply think the Greens must care about the hill and the deer – I have to let them know the truth.

The elections are to be held on 3rd May. Torry and Ferryhill will be represented by four city councillors.

I served on the Torry Community Council for three years, and I have always been involved in helping people in my area and further afield whether it be fighting school closures, charity work, or helping some of our older people. One of the newer local Green Party ‘higher-ups’ apparently said ‘Suzanne doesn’t stand a chance of winning.’ Well, I am determined to prove them wrong.

Old Susannah #72 – Propaganda Special

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Environment, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Mar 302012
 

Midway between that referendum and the forthcoming council elections,  Old Susannah takes a look at the nature, effect and effectiveness  of propaganda. By Suzanne Kelly.

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Tally Ho! The weather in Aberdeen has been glorious; half of the town seems to have been at the beach or Torrymelinos this past Sunday; even the dolphins showed up to add to a beautiful spring day. I just finished reading Adam Ardrey’s book ‘Finding Merlin’, which I review elsewhere in Aberdeen Voice.

Ardrey makes some interesting observations in this book. Between this and a thread on Facebook where a city employee set out to defend the City’s publication ‘Our Green Times’ which uses (whether deliberately or not) several propaganda techniques, Old Susannah has been thinking about ways in which people are being manipulated by those in power.

Ardrey’s book and other works show that what little we think we know today about Merlin and Arthur had been deliberately garbled by the propaganda arm of the young Christian church. There was a huge power struggle between the existing druidic tradition (where education was prized, men and women were largely equal) and the new Christian movement.

The church needed to seize power and to instil fear and respect in the populace in order to survive and become supreme. The old ways favoured a system of meritocracy for choosing kings; the church used politics and propaganda, and chose to favour hereditary government. The church could not allow any alternative religion or opposition of any kind to exist.

So the druid Merlin was referred to as a madman and a conjurer in Christian-controlled texts of the times, and non-Christians were lumped into one group called ‘pagans’ and ‘heathens’.

The Christian church’s use of propaganda was skilful, and it pretty much ensured druidic tradition was purged from the records. Only in coded form or in ridicule would the church allow its opponents to be referred to at all. The new religion’s propaganda was sometimes brutal, sometimes subtle – but in the end it won.

Thank goodness today people come to positions of power and influence because of their abilities and not because of money and connections. Take Donald Trump for instance (please – just take him), or some of our amazingly-gifted local politicians and ACSEF members.

They don’t rely on connections, money or propaganda; we love them for everything they’ve done to us – sorry,  ‘for us’. We can rely on our governments to tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Sure we can.

Just look at the fantastic Phase 2 consultation for the tree planting.

No one objected to the scheme! Result! Of course no one knew at the time there would be a deer cull and most of the trees (89,000 plus) would be plunked on Tullos Hill (as the info had been deliberately withheld), but there you go. And surely no one in power would use ridicule to discredit or suppress vocal opponents?

  we are constantly being bombarded with subtle propaganda tactics, which can be quite effective

It’s not as if the work of weapons expert Hans Blix was in any way devalued when he said that Iraq did not have secret stashes of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (this expression, ‘WMD; is itself an example of creating a propaganda phrase which caught on).

Dr. Kelly (RIP), the government advisor, was labelled a ‘Walter Mitty type’ by government mandarins for his courageous stand against the propaganda that led to the Iraq Invasion. Dr Kelly paid for his principles with his life. In fact the whole case for this bloody war was based on a dossier that was ‘sexed up’ – i.e. blatantly amended and turned into propaganda. This was done by the top propagandists of our times: Blair and Campbell.

But we are constantly being bombarded with subtle propaganda tactics, which can be quite effective. Believe it or not, this even happens here in Aberdeen! Perhaps our kindly, benevolent government just wants to help us by digesting facts for us, skipping the ones that might upset us, and painting a rosy picture for us to swallow without question. Quite nice of them, really.

One person, however, wants to analyse the secrets of the propagandist and ruin the party.
See: http://history.howstuffworks.com/historians/propaganda1.htm

Time (finally) to get on with some propaganda-based definitions…

Fear: (noun) state of alarm or terror. In propaganda terms, ‘fear’ is deliberately employed to influence people’s thoughts and actions.

Surely no one would ever employ fear as a propaganda weapon against the good people of Aberdeen? Well, there was the little matter of fear-based propaganda over the gardens: build them or no companies will come to Aberdeen to set up shop was the message that pretty A3 colour flyer and the BIG partnership put about.

Of course BiG is really, really subtle when it comes to propaganda, as we’ve seen recently. While you got this message in a Technicolor brochure, your employer may well have been writing to you to say you should vote for the web. The combined message was: ‘Worried about money? Then you better support the web and we’ll all be rich and have jobs.’

Fear was used on us – and it was used by the secretive group Vote for the City Gardens Project which was accountable to no one – but which certainly put out a nice quantity of propaganda. Old Susannah has copies of the lovely A3 colour leaflet, and is considering whether to frame them or recycle as a cat tray liner. I’ll get back to you on my decision.

Here’s a decision which I have made.

According to my sources, some of those who participated in and/or financed and/or were connected to the secretive ‘Vote for the City Gardens Project’ included:

Stewart Milne (no introduction needed)
Mary Martin (of the Douglas Hotel)
Sandy Clark
Mike Wilson
Colin Manson
Tommy Dreelan

I am sure these modest heroes who helped voters choose sides won’t mind my mentioning them now. However, if any of those named above writes to deny any involvement with VFTCGP, then I will be more than happy to remove their name from my list and issue an apology. If any other VFTCGP supporters or financers who wish to step up to receive the grateful public’s thanks, then please do get in touch. But on with our definitions.

Stop Government Propaganda Now: (noun) American legislation supported by GW Bush (really) which sought to make it a criminal offense for government to influence media to push particular stories, skew the truth, or to hide information.

Has anything like that happened in Aberdeen? Would the local media allow itself to be used? Would local media favour its higher-spending advertisers? Hmmm.

But the city government has its own periodicals including ‘Our Green Times’. The supporter of this periodical who was flying its flag on Facebook quite rightly pointed out that the thing costs time and money to create (taxpayer money mind).

Old Susannah was in an interesting Facebook thread with a city employee who is involved in the publication of Aberdeen City’s PR ‘newspaper’, ‘Our Green Times. Consciously or not, the person who made these posts used several more types of tools straight out of the ‘Propaganda For Dummies’ handbook. The first was:

Name-calling: (noun) Propaganda tool which seeks to both deflect attention away from any actual issues, and create a negative stereotype to brand groups of people with. Name-calling can become widely used (the word ‘CHAV’ being a good example), or it can be something subtle.

The Facebook defender of Aberdeen City’s publication, ‘Our Green Times’ somehow came up with a category of people he called ‘campaigners’, and the implication was made that campaigners were failing to see all the good things going on in the city, and focused on the negative.

Gee. ‘Campaigners’ – the word evokes right-on, aggressive militants with placards, if not extremists. Yet when it comes to issues such as Union Terrace Gardens, the Tullos Hill situation, and the swingeing budget cuts, there is no wider cross-section of ‘campaigners’ to be found. I call them ‘people’ myself. But he’s tried to establish that there is a negative group of people, and they are to be lumped together and called ‘campaigners’ for criticising the city.

Card-stacking: (noun)to present only information which makes a positive public impression – and in so doing gives the impression – whether deliberate or otherwise – that there are no negative issues.

This is in many ways the most serious form of propaganda weapon. In the words of the author of the article published in ‘how stuff works’ in the above link:-

“… the bad stuff is left out entirely. …. this type of propaganda technique presents a lopsided and unrealistic viewpoint that is dangerously deceptive.”

Sorry, but the above description fits exactly with what ‘Our Green Times’ does. In its pages there are no deer culls, no high pollution figures for Wellington Road, and no urban sprawl issues.

By now the Facebook discussion thread was growing by leaps and bounds. Another poster asked our man from ‘Our Green Times’ about several environmental issues. The reply that came back? ‘FFS’. (Old Susannah is told this is a rather rude expression, but I certainly have no idea what it means and no intention of defining it).

Yet another poster showed up to defend ‘Our Green Times;’ she ridiculed the guy who’d asked the questions.

Ridicule: (noun) to belittle by poking fun at something or someone; in propaganda terms, this is an old standby favourite. If you can get your opponent laughed at, then you are on your way.

Old Susannah will put her hand up: I have actually believed one or two people in power in our fair city deserving of a bit of ridicule; some readers may have seen small traces of this in previous columns. Historically, the English literally belittled Napoleon – he was jokingly called a small man. Truth was, he was taller than Nelson.

Old Susannah could go on about other propaganda tools such as ‘transfer’ and ‘Greenwash’ (to pretend to be greener than you are to win acceptance ), but you get the idea.

We were blitzed with propaganda over the City Garden Project, and in the run up to the May elections, we will be bombarded with yet more. I’d just like to suggest strongly to everyone to take on board that these techniques exist, and to be alert for when they are used on you.

By all means apply the same criteria to everything you read in The Aberdeen Voice too.

The Voice will take articles and writing from anyone on any subject, so long as it meets legal requirements for publication. The Voice has no agenda of its own; it has printed items on both sides of issues such as the Menie Golf Course and the AWPR. It has no advertisers to keep happy, only readers to hopefully inform, entertain, and amuse.

Tullos Gorse Clearance: Is The City Damaging Our Wildlife?

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Breaking, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, News  No Responses »
Mar 252012
 

Aberdeen City Council has been warned today that its staff could face criminal prosecution for its activities on Tullos Hill.  Animal Concern’s John Robins issued a press release explaining all, and Aberdeen Voice brings you this latest development in the ongoing Tullos Hill saga.

 

tullosgorse
Aberdeen City Council (ACC) has been warned that staff and volunteers involved in the controversial Tree for Every Citizen project could face prosecution under wildlife crime laws.

It is believed workers have started clearing gorse and shrubs on Tullos Hill in preparation for the planting of saplings which is due to start next month.

Gorse is a favoured nesting habitat for a variety of birds including members of the finch family. It is a criminal offence to disturb or destroy active nests or to harm eggs or chicks.

John Robins of Animal Concern Advice Line (ACAL) has asked the Wildlife Crime Officer at Grampian Police to investigate the situation with a view to arresting anyone found to have broken wildlife protection laws. The SSPCA and RSPB have also been asked to intervene. ACAL have warned ACC that their staff and volunteers could be prosecuted for destroying birds’ nests and they have asked the Council to suspend all work on Tullos Hill until September.

John Robins states:

“This tree planting scheme has gone from insane to criminally insane. Who in their right mind orders clearance of nest sites just at the time when song birds are nesting and then sends in an army of tree planters when ground nesting birds are trying to raise their young?

“This latest development suggests that the people behind this project really do not have a clue about what they are doing.  ACC claim their Tree for Every Citizen project will provide wildlife habitat. All I can see is habitat destruction and disruption at the very worst time of year for that to happen. Will it take a criminal prosecution before ACC see sense?”

Gavin Lindsay, Wildlife Crime Officer at Grampian Police, has agreed to speak to Aberdeen City Council about possible breaches in wildlife protection laws.  The SSPCA have asked their Aberdeen inspectorate to look into the matter. We await a response from RSPB Scotland.

The Council have put up temporary fencing around and on Tullos Hill. These have yellow hazard warning signs stating “Warning Forestry Operations. Please obey all signs and restrictions.”

A copy of the warning sent to the ACC Chief Exec and the Councillor behind the tree planting project is as follows:-

 

Dear Ms Watts and Councillor Malone,

I note that Aberdeen City Council has announced its intention to commence ground preparation work and the planting of saplings on Tullos Hill. I understand that this work will involve the removal of bracken and gorse and that clearance of these plants may already have started.

Given the long period of unseasonably mild weather you’ve had in the Aberdeen area over the last few weeks it is highly likely that birds will be nesting early and there will be nests with eggs and chicks in the gorse and on the ground at Tullos Hill. Gorse, which provides prickly protection for nesting birds, is a favoured nesting habitat for finches such as Twite, Chaffinch, Linnet, Redpoll and others.  From photographs and descriptions of the terrain on Tullos Hill I expect there are also a fair number of native ground nesting birds such as Lapwing, Curlew, Skylark and perhaps Ring Ouzel nesting in the area.

Yesterday we had a report that someone has heard grouse calling on the hill so it is likely that grouse will be nesting there too. There will no doubt be many pheasant breeding on the hill as well.

As you are probably aware it is a criminal offence to disturb or destroy birds’ nests containing eggs or chicks. It is likely that it would be individual employees or volunteers who would be prosecuted should wildlife protection laws be breached while the gorse and bracken is removed or while saplings are being planted.

I ask Aberdeen City Council to suspend all activities on Tullos Hill until September to avoid disturbing or destroying any active nests. I have notified the Grampian Police Wildlife Crime Unit, RSPB and the SSPCA of the situation.

Yours sincerely,

John F. Robins, Secretary to ACAL

 

Old Susannah No. 71 – Dr Who Special

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Environment, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Mar 222012
 

Old Susannah takes a humanoid angle on the Provost’s exit, the who’s who of deer cull councillors, alledged  cybercrime, the police box/granite web, and the Cameron and Clegg creatures.  By Suzanne Kelly 

 

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Happy Friday everyone!  So much has been happening in our Vibrant ‘Deen it is hard to know where to start.

Bad news first I suppose:  with a heavy heart I must inform you that our Lord Provost will not be joining the council next year.  Soon his clothing allowance and civic car privileges will pass to another.

But which young pretender will take the crown, chain of office and supply of carriage clocks?

HoMalone, if she manages to get re-elected may stand some chance; she was  deemed the worthiest LibDem in the land.  And now that she leads the LibDems, I’m sure there’s no stopping her.

At least we’ll all get to go to Provost Stephen’s portrait unveiling party before the end comes. . .  guess his LibDem pals will have to find someone else to hitch rides with other than in the civic car at our expense.  Steve Delaney, who will contest the Lord Provost’s seat in the May, got a ride from the obliging taxpayer in the civic car as he was late for something or other.  We are too kind. I’d have given him a carriage clock as well, so he wouldn’t be late next time.  Perhaps he already has one?

A very silly rumour reaches Old Susannah; it can’t be true.  I hear that the virtuous ex-Councillor Richard Robertson, who quit the city council over the 3rd Don Crossing, wants to run in Torry/Ferryhill.  Now, as a Torry resident who’s been going to the community council meetings recently, I am not sure that someone who voted in favour of shooting our deer and against letting me and the Cove Community Chairman speak to the Housing & Environment Committee to try and save the deer is going to find many votes in this part of town.

In fact, if the people who we spoke to last Saturday in town while handing out flyers about the cull are anything to go by, then I doubt any of the following deer killers are going to get great receptions at the ballot box.

 One ambitious girl seems to have grown up with the Dalek as a role model.  Step forward Aileen Malone.

Remember these people; they are the ones to thank over the affairs on Tullos Hill:   John Corall, Jackie Dunbar, Neil ‘Fletch’ Fletcher (who sadly is leaving us anyway), Jim Noble, Richard Robertson, Wendy Stuart, Ian Yuill, and new LibDem Darling, HoMalone.  The deer’s friends?  Neil Cooney, Yvonne Allan, Norman Collie,  James Hunter,  Alan Milne and Willie Young.

Dr Who has another new companion this week;  I’ve been recalling all the frightening monsters, world-destroying creatures, and evil masterminds we’ve seen over the decades.  But never mind the city council and its advisors – on with some definitions….

Dalek   (noun) part human creature created by Davros, a Dalek is a single-minded creature, repeating the same phrases over and over again, in a robotic voice; most notably ‘Exterminate!’.  Daleks are not known for their ability to negotiate, only to destroy.

We all remember being terrified and trembling behind our sofas and forts made of cushions and blankets as the Daleks rolled across our TV screens crying ‘Exterminate!  Exterminate!’.   Most of us were afraid of these creatures, but one ambitious girl seems to have grown up with the Dalek as a role model.  Step forward Aileen Malone.

She will not negotiate a peaceful settlement with thousands of people who want to keep Tullos Hill as a meadow.  She operates a scorched earth policy (well, mostly scorched rock policy – I’ve been up there and seen where the trees are going to be planted before they die), and she is going to EXTERMINATE the deer which live there.

Can no one stop the march (well, glide) of this Dalek in its quest for world domination?   Like the Daleks in Dr Who, she is aided by one or two humanoids who should know better,  but don’t.

Cybermen:

 The Cybermen likewise terrified generations of children; they were humans which had been ‘upgraded’ – or rather turned into humanoid machines powered by remnants of human brains.  But the question for Aberdeen is:  has there or has there not been any Cyber-crime?

Just as time was running out for the referendum vote, along came Tom Smith (connected to the private Aberdeen City Gardens Trust entity – amongst other hats worn) with allegations of illegal cyber crime.  Had Cybermen hacked into his emails?  Were they intimidating him?

Well, we still don’t know.  He’s said nothing, and we wait patiently for the police’s statement on the matter.  Until we know otherwise, be on the lookout for cyber-crime – and cybermen.  If it turns out to be a case of ‘the boy who cried cybercrime’, Old Susannah will tell you all about it.

Regeneration:

The Doctor occasionally sacrificed one of his several incarnations; usually to save others or for a noble cause.  Councillor Robertson, having lost a life when he threw himself out of office over the Don crossing, is going to try to regenerate as a Torry/Ferryhill councillor.  Like the doctor, it will be best if he has amnesia, for his support of the deer-cull-for-tree-scheme will not add to his appeal in this (or indeed any other) part of town.

TARDIS:  (noun) acronym standing for Time And Relative Dimension In Space – Dr Who’s time-travelling apparatus – normally taking the outward form of an old-fashioned police box; much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Well, the TARDIS doesn’t have to be a police box, in fact other time lords used different kinds of TARDIS machines.  I think I have possibly located one.

Where in Aberdeen will we soon have something that is bigger on the inside than it is outside?  Why in the Granite Web, of course.

The architects have promised that we will magically have twice the green space we currently have in the garden now!  Surely this is Timelord technology.  Despite the potato-crisp shaped concrete web over the concrete indoor/outdoor theatre/skating rink, despite the required ventilation units and means of holding the granite web up, the new improved gardens will be double the size of the existing ones.

There will be all sorts of weird and (allegedly) wonderful underground areas which will be far bigger than the outer structure.  I think the plans have space for a lair for the Master, and some Silurians.  Yes, I see the Granite Web as a time-travelling icon – it is taking us back to the ‘60s and/or ‘70s –  and yet promises to take us proudly into the future.  This is time travel at its best – and possibly at its most expensive.

Dr Who and The State of Decay:  (noun, television show) Part of the Dr Who Saga in which a planet is dominated by bloodsucking vampires who have caused society to regress.

Old Susannah can’t think why this series (featuring the inimitable Tom Baker) has sprung to mind, but in this story, a small amount of greedy powerful  bloodsuckers have taken so much away from the existing society, that it has regressed to  a more primitive, poverty-stricken state than it had been in before power was seized by these vampires.

The blood-sucking creatures, Cameron and Clegg, have reduced the NHS to rubble, impoverished the old, got rid of any decent schools, and use the young as fodder for their own selfish ends.  One of the scariest parts of the Dr Who story so far.  Thankfully, the Doctor and Ramana eventually find a way to rid the planet of its tyrannical despots.

Next week:  (Hopefully) deer update, Milne update, Referendum update – and a cheerful look at Aberdeen City Council’s happiest publication – ‘Our Green Times’.

Tullos Hill Deer Cull – A Resident’s View

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Mar 222012
 

With no sign of regret or compromise, let alone acknowledgement of a huge problem, Aberdeen City is literally ploughing ahead with its unpopular tree planting on the rocky soil of Tullos Hill, which sits on the North Sea. This tree planting as we now know involves a deer cull – which as documents show was deliberately withheld from the consultation. Local resident Alan Robertson gives his point of view.

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Anyone who has watched the Tullos Hill deer cull debate unfold over the last eighteen months cannot help but be astonished by how this has been conducted by Officials and Councillors at Aberdeen City Council.

In the latest twist to this sorry tale, the Council have started the deliberate destruction of areas of the deer’s natural habitat by removing large quantities of gorse from the Tullos Hill area.

These are areas where the deer used to shelter and graze. Along with the gorse in these areas, the plants and grasses that the deer eat have also been cleared.

The Tullos Hill meadowland has been ruined by the Council actions and the biodiversity of plant life and creatures who depended on it destroyed.

The Council released the following statement to the Media a few days ago:

“The roe deer population on Tullos Hill is currently much higher than the land can support. There is very little variety of vegetation growing and deer suffer as a result.”

Yes, the deer will ‘suffer as a result’ of the deliberate destruction of their habitat by the Council who have removed the gorse where the deer shelter. The clearance of these areas by the Council has ensured that there ‘is very little variety of vegetation growing’. As far as overpopulation goes, I walk across Tullos Hill regularly, and I have not seen any deer there for many weeks and suspect that most of the deer have migrated to Kincorth Hill or other areas nearby because their habitat on Tullos Hill has been destroyed by the Council.

There was no mention of the Council’s intention to cull the deer when the public consultation was released and now they have resorted to destroying the deer’s habitat to eradicate the deer from the area. In addition, the Council say that the culling of the deer will still go ahead. The result of Council action is that the deer are being attacked on two fronts; first by the destruction of their habitat and then by culling.

  the Council should be aware that Tullos Hill isn’t suitable for their tree planting scheme.

It is obvious to anyone who has followed the Council’s plans for Tullos Hill unfold via their Committee Reports, Media releases also and from emails I have received from Officials at the Council, that they are prepared to do and say anything to continue with their ridiculous tree planting scheme on Tullos Hill.

The Council proposal that Tullos Hill will become a commercially viable forest is unrealistic. The soil at Tullos Hill is unsuitable for tree planting let alone being capable of sustaining a large forested area.

In addition, consider this: have you ever seen a forested area on a North East Scotland coastline? There are very good reasons for this and the Council should be aware that Tullos Hill isn’t suitable for their tree planting scheme.

Aberdeen City Council is determined to go ahead with the tree planting scheme despite the obvious inherent disadvantages of the Tullos Hill environment. They have recently erected three perimeter fences to ensure that deer and rabbits are kept out of the main areas where trees will be planted. The combination of gorse removal and these wide ranging fenced off areas leaves the few remaining local deer on Tullos Hill with far less of their natural habitat available.

To proceed to cull the few remaining deer on the hill would be barbaric considering what the animals have already been put through by Aberdeen City Council in the last few months.

I urge local people to speak out against the proposed deer cull and contact their local Councillors regarding this issue.

Community Councils Ask ACC To Call Off Tullos Deer Cull

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, News  No Responses »
Mar 202012
 

With thanks to John F. Robins, Secretary, Animal Concern Advice Line (ACAL).

 

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Three Community Councils representing neighbourhoods close to Tullos Hill have issued a last minute appeal asking Aberdeen City Council to call off the deer cull planned for Tullos Hill.
In a strongly worded open letter the Community Councils, which represent over 25,000 Aberdonians, accuse the City Council of using underhand tactics to get backing to plant trees on Tullos Hill as part of their Tree for Every Citizen initiative.

They claim that,

“the public consultation was seriously flawed and made no mention of a deer cull. Community Councils and the general public were given incomplete information, allowing ACC’s intention to cull to remain unchallenged”. 

When the intention to kill the resident roe deer eventually became public knowledge there was an outcry with many Aberdonians telling the City Council that if the Tree for Every Citizen project meant killing the deer they did not want any trees planted for them. The Community Councils say the City Council dismissed local public opinion and have pleaded with the Council to change their mind at the eleventh hour and to,

“Listen to the voices of the people who elected you, cancel the cull and let the Tullos Hill deer live”.

For over a year Animal Concern Advice Line (ACAL) has been supporting local campaigners in the battle to save the Tullos Hill roe deer. John Robins of ACAL welcomed the intervention of the Community Councils. He states;

“This is a severe embarrassment to Aberdeen City Council.

“They can no longer claim that opposition to the deer cull is coming from outwith Aberdeen. Three Community Councils representing over 25,000 Aberdonians have made it perfectly clear that they want this cull stopped. On Sunday of this week the CEO of the National Trust for Scotland admitted on national television that they had made a mistake by undertaking a mass cull of deer on the Mar Lodge Estate. 

“The very same advisors who were behind that cull are the people advising Aberdeen City Council to kill the deer on Tullos Hill. There is still time for Aberdeen City Council to avoid making that same mistake. All they have to do is respect the wishes of the people who elected them and call off the cull.”

  •  The Open Letter signed by Nigg, Torry and, Kincorth & Leggart Community Councils can be viewed here.

Old Susannah No. 70 – A Mixed Bag

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Information, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Mar 152012
 

Voice’s Old Susannah considers the upcoming council elections, the UTG referendum result, the happenings on Tullos Hill, International Womens Day, blogging beasties and generosity. By Suzanne Kelly 

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Tally Ho!  The May elections are coming, and not a second too soon.  Some of our tireless (or is that tiresome?) councillors are packing up and preparing to move on.  Let’s hope they bring all of their talents to their new areas.

I hear that there is now a shortage of packing crates at the Fortress of Doom (aka The  Townhouse) as heroic councillors get ready to head into the sunset.  I hope they don’t let the doors hit them on their way out.

As to the UTG Referendum?  Well, I guess that’s it – it has been a totally above-board, fair-and-square contest.

The grapevine would have it that some of the rich and powerful secret members of the Vote for the City Gardens Project are less than pleased it’s cost so very much money to have such a small margin of victory, but they still got the result they wanted, if not the landslide they’d prayed for (or is that ‘paid for’).

In the next few days I’ll write about the dozen or so wee problems that some people have with the referendum and how it was run.

Did you know that over 300 votes arrived just a wee bit too late to be counted?  Did you know it would be totally illegal for any of the campaigning organisations to see the register as to how the votes went?  No, neither did I until recently.  I also have it on very good authority who some of the VFTCGP backers are.  Old Susannah is toying with the idea of naming them.

They would be free to deny the association – but why should they want to be secret in the first place, after all, they were the heroes behind the scenes helping us poor souls know how to vote.  Who could turn down their promise of 6,500 new permanent jobs or their £122,000,000 flowing into the city each year?  Think of all the parties and portraits that would buy!  Wow!

(You might be interested to know that PriceWaterhouse Coopers were asked by me if they had intended their projections about money and jobs to be used as the VFTCGP did in its propaganda.   PwC might have been expected to say they were delighted, and that they stand behind their projections 100%.  However, they said that as the projections were made for a ‘private client’ they can make no comment on them to me.  Of course the bills I’ve seen for PwC look like you and I paid for this great work out of our taxes, but there you go).

And other great news from Tullos  Hill.  HoMalone is having her way, backed up by impartial ‘expert’ C Piper (perhaps related to the CJ Piper firm which was already paid £42,000 for the bang-up job delivered on tree planting to date?).  Yes, the gorse is gone, and with it all those annoying butterflies, bees, moths, and insects.

The birds that would have eaten these critters and the small and larger mammals which lived in the gorse are homeless.  If only I had an environmental degree, then I could say we’ve interrupted the food chain and interfered with existing biodiversity on Tullos.  As it is, I’m not allowed to make any such observation, however obvious.

Any small mammals or deer rendered homeless should apply at Marischal College reception to declare their homeless status.  Of course these creatures are likely now to wind up as road kill.  Surely not even HoMalone or Ranger Bigboy will dare to claim any roadkill we see now will be due to overpopulation?  Well, we’ll see.

  Women around the world lack rights and comforts we all take for granted

Some of those animal-loving, meadow-loving radicals will be handing flyers out and collecting signatures on petitions this Saturday at 12:30 in front of Marks & Spencer Union Street.  The petitions apparently are to protest the use of school children to plant the 89,000 trees on Tullos.

Ms Malone indicates this will be an educational experience for the little mites, and I’m sure it will.

Having seen the state of the hill, they will learn about cuts, tetanus boosters, chemical pollution, industrial waste, and dead deer.  Thank you, Aileen.  I do hope she will make it to the hill to plant a few trees herself.  That would seem only fair to me.

For the paper petition, further info, and a PDF of the new flyer, visit:  http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/

Finally, Old Susannah attended two events in the last week which celebrated International Women’s Day, a great Oxfam fundraiser held by Bead Crazy on St Andrew Street.  A dozen or so guests were treated to cocktails (thanks for the Black Russians), brownies and beads.  Everyone made pieces from recycled materials which was right up my street.

I’ve turned an old domino into a necklace that says ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, and a bottle cap into a brooch with an Oxfam fact.  Women around the world lack rights and comforts we all take for granted.  Thanks to Alex and everyone at Bead Crazy for the event.

Then at the Belmont last Saturday I ran into a collection of women celebrating Women’s day a bit differently.  They were all dressed as fairy godmothers, and were collecting wishes from the public as to what people would like to wish for our young girls’ futures.  My wishes didn’t include any granite webs or deer culls.  Thank you Merlyn and all the other women.

As well as a definition or two, this week I am pleased to announce that Aberdeen Voice has negotiated two new Celebrity Bloggers!  They will be featured in this column for the next several weeks.

And now – the first ever Millie & Cattie joint Blog!

“Hi I’m Millie, the Caterpillar!”

“And I’m Cattie the Millipede!  We’ve had a horrible, tragic few days:  our meadow home was destroyed and many of our friends with it.”

“Yes, sadly that’s true, Cattie.  Bulldozers showed up without warning to our Tullos Hill home, and ruined our wildflower and gorse home.  We had our rescue quite by chance.”

“That’s right Millie.  We were chewing on a Foxglove plant and suddenly it was ripped up and hurled into the air.  Sometime later the plant was found by a kindly passerby, and we were all taken to a safe house where we all now live.”

“We were both reluctant to launch this blog, but Old Susannah showed us the coverage Aberdeen was giving to a talking cactus, Morris the Monkey, and Jake the Ghost.  So we thought, ‘Why not try it?’   We know Spike the Cactus is very popular, and if people are willing to take voting advice from a monkey and a ghost (no offence), then people should know our story, too.”

“Yes Millie – we have a responsibility to let people know our beautiful home is gone, and an entire generation of moths, butterflies, bees have been wiped out.  What will become of some of our larger friends like the birds, small mammals and especially the kindly roe deer is our huge worry now.”

“Agreed Cattie.  We are grateful we were saved – we only hope our friends who haven’t been destroyed yet will be spared.  Got any lettuce?”

Cattie and Millie will give us an update next week and for the foreseeable future.

Charity:  (adjective) state of being generous, donating time or money to those  less fortunate.

While our very own local billionaire works selflessly to ensure his lasting granite memorial will bring his family continued and visible dominance over a certain city, a less savvy multi-millionaire has displayed a woeful lack of commonsense.

When it looked as if there would be some public outcry against his web, he calmly threatened to take his ball and go home.

J K Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter saga read the world over, has donated over £100 million to charity in the past year and a bit.  Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard hardly anything about her donations.  Where were the press cuttings, the headlines, the photos?  What did she get in return to show for it?

Ms Rowling has a lot to learn I fear.  Not only has she given enough away to nearly pay for the granite web we all long for, she’s dropped way down on the UK’s wealthiest list.

We will remember for quite some time how Sir Ian made his gracious £50 million donation to Aberdeen.  As long as we did what he wanted with it, and let unelected entities ‘manage’ our common good land, it was a great gift indeed.  When it looked as if there would be some public outcry against his web, he calmly threatened to take his ball and go home. Charity begins at home, and we’re going to take his charity, whatever form it takes, and like it.

Sure, Rowling may have made children all over the world discover the joy of reading,  and her books got people to read together in families and groups.   Her money may have helped countless people the world over across a wide variety of problems and concerns.  She may have made important points about the value of love, courage, kindness and friendship –  

But where’s the statue?  Alas, if there’s no granite monument and not a ton of press coverage bragging about the money, then the donations might as well never have happened.  Shame.  Perhaps a great PR firm could help…

One of the more radical points I picked up from these ‘children’s books of Ms Rowling’s ran along the lines of this (I deliberately paraphrase)  “One thing the tyrants of this world fear is that one day, one of the people they have oppressed will rise up against them.”  Can’t for the life of me think why that particular idea should spring to mind, but there it is.

New Acronyms!

Hooray!  We’ve more acronyms in this town than we know what to do with.  First it was the ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme or “T’FEC!’ as it is affectionately known in Torry.  The tree scheme’s supporters (all 3 of them) are so pleased with their recent successes that they have more plans up their sleeves, or so I hear.

‘Forget Allowing Citizens Anything for Free’  is a brainchild for the coming budget cuts which are  in the pipeline, reflecting the service cuts and support staff cuts.  It will be called ‘FAC AFF!’ for short.

If this proves successful, phase 2 may be launched.  Its working title is Forget Every Citizen Utterly – or ‘FEC U’ for short.

If you want to see these schemes enacted, then don’t rock the boat at the elections, and we will continue on our happy course.  See you down at the Granite Web or Monorail station soon!

Next week? – At this rate what our Council will dream up is anyone’s guess…

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