Vital long-term ecology study under threat from funding cuts

Here's yet another piece of valuable science that's under threat of being destroyed from reckless cuts to UK science funding. Long-term ecology studies like these are exceedingly rare and have never been more important given the current environmental situation, yet this is all currently on track for termination because of the decisions of utterly clueless bureaucrats. This isn't even an expensive study, costing only £12,000 a year.

A Just Giving campaign has been opened but it's disgraceful that this scientist is having to resort to this in the first place.

Which nurse or teacher would you like to nominate to sack to fund the study?

Which classroom or hospital ward should we shut instead?

In the grand scheme of things ecology is way down people's list of prioritise.

Which nurse or teacher would you like to nominate to sack to fund the study?

Which classroom or hospital ward should we shut instead?

In the grand scheme of things ecology is way down people's list of prioritise.

From the moment I got the notification of you replying, I knew it would be a stupid response like this. You're presenting an absolutely absurd dichotomy. It's not a choice between closing down a hospital ward or classroom. This study costs £12,000 a year to fund - absolutely nothing in the greater schemes of things - and that's money that could so easily be sourced from somewhere else. I could give you a long and boring list of hundreds of places we could get the money from but for starters, how about the billions of unpaid tax owed by corporations?

From the moment I got the notification of you replying, I knew it would be a stupid response like this. You're presenting an absolutely absurd dichotomy. It's not a choice between closing down a hospital ward or classroom. This study costs £12,000 a year to fund - absolutely nothing in the greater schemes of things - and that's money that could so easily be sourced from somewhere else. I could give you a long and boring list of hundreds of places we could get the money from but for starters, how about the billions of unpaid tax owed by corporations?

From the moment I got the notification of you replying, I knew it would be a stupid response like this. You're presenting an absolutely absurd dichotomy. It's not a choice between closing down a hospital ward or classroom. This study costs £12,000 a year to fund - absolutely nothing in the greater schemes of things - and that's money that could so easily be sourced from somewhere else. I could give you a long and boring list of hundreds of places we could get the money from but for starters, how about the billions of unpaid tax owed by corporations?

From the moment I got the notification of you replying, I knew it would be a stupid response like this. You're presenting an absolutely absurd dichotomy. It's not a choice between closing down a hospital ward or classroom. This study costs £12,000 a year to fund - absolutely nothing in the greater schemes of things - and that's money that could so easily be sourced from somewhere else. I could give you a long and boring list of hundreds of places we could get the money from but for starters, how about the billions of unpaid tax owed by corporations?

Which nurse or teacher would you like to nominate to sack to fund the study?

Which classroom or hospital ward should we shut instead?

In the grand scheme of things ecology is way down people's list of prioritise.

It's £12,000 a year. Don't pretend that we actually need to cut funding elsewhere to get that money - it can be found very easily.

£12,000 a year could easily come out of David Cameron's own salary. Or you could pay for it with slight pay cuts for all MPs. Or how about limiting expenses. That's what's so stupid about cutting this survey funding - the amount of money involved is so small.

Conservation organisations like the RSPB have huge membership, and the RSPB alone has more members than all political parties combined. So ecology is not "way down" the public's priorities. More people care about it than you think.

I can't believe people think cutting this is a good thing. Important scientific research should be one of the last things to be cut, especially long term surveys like this guillemot one.

If we can afford to do stuff like build HS2 and give big tax incentives to fracking companies, we can afford £12000 a year for a simple scientific survey. Don't tell me the money isn't there.

Everyone thinks their own study is the most important thing on planet earth. We simply can't fund everything.

We simply can fund this study though, given how little it costs to run. £12,000 a year - you could easily get that money together from a government budget when you look at how other parts of the budget are spent. As I said, that money could easily come out of David Cameron's own salary, that's the sort of money we're talking about.

Long term studies like this are also very important, because you have data over a long period of time with no gaps in it.

I know you can't fund everything, but cutting a survey that only costs £12,000 a year because "we can't afford it" really is pathetic.

From the moment I got the notification of you replying, I knew it would be a stupid response like this. You're presenting an absolutely absurd dichotomy. It's not a choice between closing down a hospital ward or classroom. This study costs £12,000 a year to fund - absolutely nothing in the greater schemes of things - and that's money that could so easily be sourced from somewhere else. I could give you a long and boring list of hundreds of places we could get the money from but for starters, how about the billions of unpaid tax owed by corporations?

Well, as an ecology student I should be outraged, but...I'm not. It isn't ideal, but really, better Guillemot surveys lose funding than, say, bat surveys.

It's £12,000 a year. Don't pretend that we actually need to cut funding elsewhere to get that money - it can be found very easily.

£12,000 a year could easily come out of David Cameron's own salary. Or you could pay for it with slight pay cuts for all MPs. Or how about limiting expenses. That's what's so stupid about cutting this survey funding - the amount of money involved is so small.

Conservation organisations like the RSPB have huge membership, and the RSPB alone has more members than all political parties combined. So ecology is not "way down" the public's priorities. More people care about it than you think.