You do know what day it is don’t you?
In my ‘political birder’ column in this month’s Birdwatch magazine I discuss whether nature conservationists should be causing a few more problems for the fieldsports community in response to the lack of hen harriers, buzzardgate and the call to put goosander and cormorant on the general licence.
None of the ‘debate’ started by Magnus Linklater’s recent Observer article nor its follow-up on this blog has changed my mind in that regard. Maybe Magnus, Lazywell, POB and others would like to write to Birdwatch in response to the question ‘can birders and shooters be on the same side?’.
[registration_form]
Of course they cam, but they are not necessarily so. The chap with a set of tweed shooting at pheasants release from a pen a few days ago has no automatic qualification to “know about the country” than the fellow with a Swarovski scope and an impressive life list has to speak on behalf of conservation.
I know shooters who are a disgrace to their hobby and birders and photographers who do nothing for conservation and think nothing of flushing breeding birds to get the tick or photo they feel they need.
I also know plenty of conservationists who enjoy both shooting and birding, but my point is neither is a qualification to call yourself a conservationist or a countryman.
I like the idea that golfers buy all their equipment and then pay a hefty annual subscription to join a club that gives them the environment they want to enjoy their hobby locally. Some birdwatchers may spend the same amount on kit and then if we are lucky they spend £45 on an RSPB subscription and think they are dedicated conservationists. Coughing up less than the cost of a AA membership is hardly dedication to a cause, anymore than a long list of ticks is.
I like to emphasize the common ground and shame those who use the term conservationist to describe themselves without any qualification to do so.
David – welcome! and many thanks for that contribution.
Start of the partridge season?
Peter – you like a puzzle don’t you? I think it is but come back at 6pm, well timed, for what day I consider it to be.
David: Why should this have anything to do with money and the amount that anyone spends? Surely one should be free to enjoy, appreciate, respect and take an interest in birds, wildlife and the natural environment simply by stepping outside and without spending anything at all. The operative word is ‘natural’.
We only join the RSPB, wildlife trusts, etc because it is they who are fighting the battle against those who believe that their money can buy them anything, enables them to do whatever they will to make more money and also entitles them to kill in the name of sport anything they want to.
WAGBI may have fooled a few people when they changed their name but most of us have a very different view of what ‘conservation’ means. I can’t think of any possible way that using a gun can conserve anything. Conservation is about protecting and preserving.
The term conservationist carries the implication that the people to which it applies will actually do something not just sit around and hope. It is distinct from a protectionist. A largely discredited position.
I assume Mark is up to one of his little games again as it is not possible to seperate many of the people who conserve and shoot, from people who shoot and conserve. When Mark was a Director of the RSPB he was content to sanction the shooting of deer and foxes if he thought it necessary for conservation. In the face the law and of morality a person who causes an act to happen is as responsible as the person who carries it out. I think it’s called being an accessory before the fact. President Trueman would hardly have tried to escape responsibility for Hiroshima by claiming he wasn’t actually in the plane at the time.
The fact that some members of a minority, in this case ‘shooters’, take a different position on an issue is hardly grounds for declaring war and the fact that a small number of people break the law is not grounds for damning the law abiding majority.
In any event it would be self defeating. There is a much larger body of opinion in the real world than one might guess from the discussions on this and some other similar blogs. Shooting in its various manifestations takes place over most of the rural landscape of England. The vast majority of farmers and landowners are happy that it does. Very many take part and more get much needed income from it. I won’t bore you with all the conservation benefits but just think what a brilliant idea it would be for the self-styled conservation movement to gratuitously rip into that lot. I doubt very much if such an utterly bonkers idea is in the strategic plan of Marks old employers.
Of course there are things that could be done better and things that need to be put right but that is true of every human activity. Frankly when you look at the awesome challenges facing this country’s wildlife, the idea that the sensible end of conservation declares war on shooting is simply mad and about as relevant to the real issues as a bottle of Calamine Lotion in a Small Pox Epidemic.
Ian – thank you for your views which are interesting, as always, even though they are presumably given before you read the article. Shooting from the hip perhaps? But your second paragraph is an excellent summary of the case for introducing a law of vicarious responsibility for raptor persecution – well done!
And you presumably did see the comment asking whether the GWCT, of which you are chair, would endorse the scientific accuracy of Magnus Linklater’s Observer article, his blog here and his comments. Let’s start with these;
does GWCT believe:
that golden eagles are flourishing in Scotland?
red grouse all but eliminated from Langholm in the Joint Raptor Study period?
the only person who is going to let harriers nest and breed is the local gamekeeper as a general statement?
I am usually fairly vitriolic about the shooting fraternity but they like us must have their good and bad, it just seems that the bad are prominent at the moment. I have friends I would consider good conservationists who shoot and one who hunts ( UGH!). One in particular who shoots is one of the best conservationists I know, but then he would I think not describe himself as a shooting man but a conservationist who sometimes shoots. He would also say a good day out shooting is NOT about the size of the bag.
Then on the other hand most shooters look at him askance because they do not by and large understand him.
So should we be talking, yes, but there is currently a huge gulf of understanding between the two sides that is forever being ramped up by ” the countryside lobby” when it comes to land management, access and predators. It is in the vested interest of a few and that includes most moor owners and certainly their representative body the MA, for it to appear that it is a disagreement between to valid views. It is not, but currently it is difficult to bridge that gulf but we must try even when it is sometimes necessary to be polite to those whose views we despise.
“causing a few more problems for the fieldsports community”????
We could start by challenging the dogma that moorlands are good for wildlife. It is good for some – mainly red grouse. In truth moorlands are degraded ecosystems with depauperate biodiversity. It is utterly bizarre that we cherish such degraded habitat and champion management practices that prevent the natural processes that would restore such places to more favourable ecological status.
If we remove the presence that moorland management for game somehow preserves biodiversity or valuable habitat then we remove some of the justification for public expenditure in such areas and any justification for turning a blind eye to some of the dodgy practices.
sh23363, perhaps you are getting very close to why the walshaw case was dropped?
That was not on my mind – but wouldn’t it be great it that was the reason. Much more likely that Walshaw was political (and I do hope that the efforts of Mark Avery and others can make much of this case and generate pressure for change in policy, as in the Flow Country).
No – I am just convinced that modern grouse moor management is doing for the uplands what modern farming did for the lowlands – driving homogeneity. Heather monoculture.
Dear Mark, sorry for the delay but I am out a lot. I was not responding to your article, which I’m sure will be a model of balanced polemic but to the views expressed by PeterD. I merely used you as example because it is your blog.
I should perhaps make it clear that when I’m on this blog I do not speak on behalf of GWCT, what you get is my own opinion.
The connection you try to make about vicarious liability misses the point. The real issue is that there is already a route by which people who cause others to break the law can be successfully prosecuted, if evidence exists they can be prosecuted and found guilty as accessory before the fact. They will of course, like everyone else, be innocent until proven guilty. Under vicarious liability you would be guilty until you could prove you were innocent. There would be no need for the prosecution to have to have anything as boring and inconvenient as evidence. I have yet to be convinced that someone who employs a person who breaks wildlife legislation should have less human rights than say someone who procures a murder. I don’t agree with either but we start taking the rights of other citizens away, be they ever so odious, at our peril. If you don’t mind I’ll pass on getting involved in the Observer furore. I have no wish to spend the rest of my life opening my post by remote control. I did try to catch up, I really did, but it was all so depressing and shouty that I gave up.
Ian – thanks. It makes sense for you, GWCT and many others to avoid endorsing Magnus’s grasp of science. We can all quite understand that.
“I did try to catch up, I really did, but it was all so depressing and shouty that I gave up.”
Is this in reference to the comments to Magnus Linklater’s article? To the vitriol by the “opposing side”? Or am I misunderstanding the reference?
Minna – I think that was what was meant, yes.
Dear Mr Coghill,
If this was your first brush with the shouty and the depressing, you might now have a better idea of the type of commentry that is very typical to the hunting and shooting “side” in forums and comments. I dare say that the level of vitriol from the birding side, or the conservationist, or protectionist side is equally matched, at least, by the side that likes to hold a gun for fun.
It is no excuse to give up, on the contrary.
That is your interpretation of my words, not mine. I like a lively discussion as much as you but I just can’t stand the level of invective, I find it exhausting,deeply counter productive and in some cases a bit worrying.
Just two points on Raptor research that we did do. A few years ago there was a view that Grey Partridge were being decimated by buzzards in one study area. We showed that this was not the case and everything calmed down, strangely without any shouting.
The second showed that in certain circumstances sparrow hawks have a significant impact on Greys in the early spring when they pair and move into close proximity to hedgerows and become vulnerable to classic sparrow hawk flip over the hedge and grab tactics. That’s the bad news. The good news is there is a fairly simple management adjustment that largely solves the problem allowing Grey numbers to rise to near historic levels in the presence of good numbers of sparrow hawks.
In my experience farmers, landowners and shooters can often be persuaded, and sometimes led, but they are the very devil to drive. I’m not entirely sure that the next time you get an invitation to address a group of farmers, land managers, etc that you will circulate a copy of the recent furore prior to the meeting.
Mark ,just for the record I was, as you know replying to you not Minna, as now might appear to be the case.