9 Replies to “Brian May and Chris Packham discuss grouse shooting”

  1. About the “A gamekeeper does more for wildlife than Chris P” tweet. Many years ago I was involved in a Public Inquiry. Without going into too much detail for my own good, it was about a pheasant shoot next to an NNR. For the avoidance of doubt, I am genuinely not aware of any illegal activity on the part of the shoot (and there were not even any rumours of such).

    But the scale of legal predator control was jaw dropping – they were proud of killing 3000 stoats and weasels a year, as well as umpteen other predators, in their attempt to create a “wild” i.e. no annual releases, just a shootable surplus from the resident pheasant population – pheasant shoot. The parallel with DGS is exact, except that they wanted to shoot an introduced bird and Grouse is native.

    During cross examination we talked at cross purposes for some time about how wonderful their management for wildlife was (or was not). Eventually the penny dropped and the conservation witness exclaimed “pheasants are NOT wildlife!”. The reaction was as if he’d suggested that the opponent’s mother had slept with Satan. It was absolutely fundamental to their understanding of the world and their role in it that the game birds were wildlife, and morally as well as financially important as as such, and that anything that threatened this wildlife was vermin. In getting rid of the threats to the pheasants they sincerely believed they were fulfilling a high moral purpose, and they could and did sincerely disbelieve any assertions to the contrary. Those of us seeking to protect things like stoats from this slaughter were aiding a moral enemy. They were utterly baffled how anyone could wish do do such a thing unless they (we) were totally naive or actively evil.

    This is the mindset we’re up against.

  2. Just seen an article about a grouse shoot at Wemmergill in the Yorkshire Dales National Park on shootinguk website. Says it is 18000 acres.
    I make that 7,284 hectares @ £56 per hectare per year CAP subsidy. If my maths is correct that makes a subsidy of £407,004 per year of taxpayers money via the CAP for these grouse moor owners!

    1. I agree, this is the ‘elephant in the room’

      Just how much money ( tax payers money ) is given to these shooting hobbyists ?? both CAP subsidies, and ‘rural development grants’. It is an obscenity ! and must be stopped.

      Snares and fenn/spring traps must be banned now.

  3. I agreed with virtually everything that Brian May said about Badger culling. They’re still culling Badgers!

    I watch this video and ask myself are sufficient majority party MPs going to be sufficiently sympathetic to deliver the hoped for legislation? Somehow I doubt it. It comes across as a game of “ain’t it awful” and anybody who has read the book “Games People Play” will recognise the antidote to game playing is simply not to play!!

    “We’re gonna build a wall and Mexico will pay for it”. Laughable isn’t it but it got Donald the Rebulican nomination (God forbid he’ll win the presidency) and the NHS is going to be £350k a week better off once we’ve brexited!!

    That my friends is politics in 2016. I wish you well but I’ve now done my bit and won’t be wasting any more brain cells.

    1. I think politics has always been like this, Fight Dirty.

      Most politicians, on any issue in which they have no personal interest, appear to respond only to a large mass of their electorate making a constantly reiterated fuss, making them think they might lose our votes if they don’t do something substantive.

      But that’s the problem, not enough of the electorate are concerned enough/persistent enough to take up most animal and environmental issues – and stick with them.

      The hen harrier is a worthy candidate for our concern, but the topic is abstruse to many – personally, only my AR/AW friends show interest, other friends and neighbours to whom I’ve tried to explain have signed the petitions, but won’t go any further to help.

      And reading RPUK just now – the litany of killing in the Cairngorms – I quite understand the way you feel in your last sentence, Fight Dirty.

      1. Hi Marion, “politicians respond to a large mass of the electorate” which is precisely why Mark and co should major on the elements that are going to cause a stir. To my mind that is the plight of people suffering downstream from the actions of a privelleged group upstream. Will a critical mass of politicians respond to videos such as the subject matter or an electorate sufficiently stirred up by more anti-establishment rhetoric?

        It also appears that when you point out the obvious it doesn’t go down too well. I’ll therefore leave it there and hope to be proved wrong!

  4. A double-barrelled Purdy of a talk – gleaming with facts and figures.
    The only thing missing was some lackey to do the reloading.

  5. It could have added much more, relating to flooding, answering the lie about record numbers of curlew on their moors, etc.
    I was horrified by the picture of dead reptiles after burning, and that discounts my feelings for people flooded by our mismanagement of countryside.
    I have tweeted this (video link) to my MP and his colleagues. He’ll go into this debate with an open mind and I am hoping my letter etc will help persuade him to vote for a ban.
    Don’t get me wrong, this video is good, but it could have been a bit longer I think.

Comments are closed.