The Times reports today that a billionaire businessman is one of the funders of the hopeless and misleading You Forgot the Birds campaign against the RSPB.
Old Harrovian Crispin Odey, reckons that the RSPB is whipping up class resentment against grouse shooting so he has helped to fund the excesses of the You Forgot the Birds ‘campaign’. Doesn’t demonstrate much class does it?
The RSPB has made the quite outrageous suggestion that people who shoot Red Grouse should not shoot Hen Harriers too! Ooh! How provocative! Damned lefties!
The RSPB’s class warriors have not yet joined the glorious revolution to ban driven grouse shooting – but I am hopeful that, one day, they will. YFTBs’ activities are very helpful in this regard. Eventually the RSPB will see that there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of making progress with the class-act that is represented by Odey and chums.
Environmentalists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your polluted rivers, increased greenhouse gas emissions, knackered landscapes and higher home insurance costs! And you have a lot to gain – pristine blanket bogs, higher carbon stores and Hen Harriers living free in our uplands! Throw off the shackles of the oppressive hedge-fund managers and take up your mouse pointers and click on ban driven grouse shooting!
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Uplifting comrade! It brought tears to my eyes 🙂 Vive la revolution!
I was going to dismiss Mr Odious’s comments quite out of hand. HOWEVER the revelation that this is a man that “loves birds so much” that he spent a six-figure sum on a chicken coop in the style of a Greek temple, well that changes everything.
Clearly this a ‘Countryman’ with impeccable taste (and lots of money), and therefore his views carry more weight than yours Mark. So your can stick your well reasoned arguments and peer-reviewed science where the sun doesn’t shine…
I’m off to join YFTB’s!
🙂
I delight in the humour of response like this – it lightens a very dark state of affairs!
An upmarket Duckhouse I assume!
Donald Trump is funding Walter Palmer, Cecil the lion killer’s legal bills. Can anyone see the comparison?
Nicely put, Mark Avery. The nature-wreckers are acting like over-sized spoilt schoolboys. Scary that they have so much clout and so little resposibility. With the general decline of the eco-system (which we ALL need) I hope they will grow up real soon.
Brilliant comment on the Times article, Mark. Hopefully the RSPB will very soon realise that, on this issue, they might just as well ‘be hung for a sheep as a lamb’ and support your petition!
There’s something a bit deeper to this.
Grouse shooting hasn’t stood still: in the last decade the values of the city have expunged the last vestiges of sport – its about numbers and money now, and no doubt the hedgies bet against each other what the score is going to be on their moor – and nothing stands in their way, mountain hares, Hen harriers, medication, whatever. And, of course, as we’ve seen throughout the financial sector its not what the law says, its what you can get away with and wildlife crime in remote areas is dead easy – and in England at least pretty well risk free for the owner.
And Michael Gove’s attitude ? I remain amazed that NGOs continue as if this Government had a vestige of interest in their point of view and carry on as if we were in the 90s when a labour Government actually tried to make the country a better place for most people. Its 8 years now – maybe the penny will eventually drop ?
There’s a pair of barn owls on our little shoot, about 30 miles from the middle of London. You will not see them anywhere else anywhere near here. There are also red kites and buzzards, all thriving. The situation has been similar on every other shoot I have visited.