Gettin' tufty with it

That venerable and august wildlife NGO, the RSPB (or rspb, as it often is these days), has launched a campaign to promote the inclusion of Nature in political parties' manifestos ahead of the UK General Election in 2015.

A noble and necessary endeavour, I hope you would agree. Wildlife and habitats should be on the political agenda, and not just as the things that are obliterated and trashed to make a quick buck.

The campaign is Vote for Bob

However... (you knew there'd be a 'however', didn't you?), the RSPB's choice of a figurehead for the campaign is a little odd, or as they put it, "innovative" and "quirky".

It's a Red Squirrel.

Called Bob.

Who has a pet snail named Brian (this could be him?)

It just all seems a little... Wildlife Explorers. Though to be fair, how often have you thought that a parliamentary debate sounded like a bunch of unruly school children running wild, so maybe Raspberry are onto something.

I've had a nice letter from a nice RSPB man in Edinburgh, letting me know that Bob won't be making too much of a fuss in our neck of the woods until after the Scottish independence referendum.

But, presumably, Bob actually lives in England, so is he based at RSPB HQ, near Sandy? A quick search on the NBN Gateway showed that the last recorded sighting of a Red Squirrel in Bedfordshire was in 1996. Even camped under the bird feeders and with pine cones on tap, a Red Squirrel from then wouldn't live long enough to be still around now.

This would either indicate that Bob is elsewhere and 'working from home' through the magic of the internet, or the RSPB have been suppressing mammal records to keep Bob's name and location secret, as those Greys can be complete and utter trolls.

Either way, I think we can rest assured that the era of lobbying government with scientific facts is over. Well, it didn't work too well for badgers or habitats, did it?