I see that an RSPB member of staff is talking at a League Against Cruel Sports event today. I’m not sure that’s a first, but it won’t have happened very often.
This has been greeted with lots of harrumphing by those mild and consensual people in the Countryside Alliance who regard LACS as extremists.
When I worked for the RSPB we did talk to lots of people. I had a couple of meetings with LACS in 25 years of working for RSPB whereas I attended around 15 Game Fairs and had innumerable meetings with GWCT, BASC and even, occasionally, with the Countryside Alliance.
And I talked to the Soil Association and to Monsanto; I talked to the British Wind Energy Association and to Shell; I talked to Conservatives and Labour (and others); I talked to the NFU and the Badger Trust. Some of those conversations were more pleasant than others, and some were more constructive than others.
It’s good to talk – it’s also good to listen.
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I remember talking to foresters regarding an ancient woodland I was managing and one of them said ‘cut it down and plant Sitka Spruce’! I did not but that is what it is all about, ‘Allowing points of view’!
They’re still saying it John, just as many conservationists are still saying there’s no wildlife in conifer forests (see latest British Wildlife letters section).
But through talking the attitude of most foresters has changed and I spend more time now trying to encourage conservation organisations to manage their woods for wildlife than preventing inappropriate conifer planting (I was in RSPB’s Highnham Woods yesterday – it is an exemplar of the sort of active management many more of our conservation woods need).
I, too, worked with LACS when I was FC conservation officer and very interesting it was too – I got on well with their widlife officer who knew his stuff – and came up with the marvellous description of FC Fox control policy ‘Murder in the name of neighbourliness’ which described the situation pretty much to a T.
At the same time I was working with the Game Conservancy on an FC funded study on pheasants & wildlife which showed that the right sort of management – opening the woods up, creating understorey and wide sunny rides – benefitted both pheasants and butterflies. Whilst not as big a gripe as raptor persecution, it grieves me greatly that ignorant keepers remain one of the biggest barriers to woodland management – they hate and stop any disturbance and in the process create freezing, draughty woods with no ‘bottom’ and good only for reared pheasants – the brave estates who have gone over to naturally bred pheasants have to look after their woods to the benefit of a wide range of wildlife.
Roderick you make a good point about woodland management practices – but how do we get them to change? Especially bearing in mind that many of our fragmented woodlands are in private hands. What practices and activities should we encourage to achieve good woodland management.
I think this is one area where LACS fall down in prioritising ‘cruel sports’. Cruelty and animal welfare are indeed important issues however cruelty does not equate to cruel sports and moreover in some cases it might be the absence of some of these so called ‘cruel sports’ that causes more problems that it solves both in terms of animal welfare and conservation.
I am not saying that all so called cruel sports are good or bad just that the issue is complex.
I think one of the best examples is with deer management. Much deer management is done by paying stalkers (as was the situation on Brian May’s estate). One could just lambast it as ‘killing for fun’ however properly conducted deer stalking can contribute greatly to overall woodland management and arguably help the welfare of the deer themselves.
If it’s right that we should manage the deer population then whether or not people enjoy doing so seems to me a secondary consideration. Indeed I would find it rather odd that we should demand people do not enjoy it.
Another example is fox hunting. There was research conducted that showed that farmers supporting fox hunters tended to maintain more bio diverse farms. This was because of things like the creation of woodland rides &c. To my mind if this is true then it should be recognised as a bonus. These issues are not entirely black and white although campaigning organisations like to make out they are.
There are lots of good things that come out of hunting and also some bad things. However LACS like to paint it as all bad even when most hunts do appear to be complying with the law.
I think LACS true agenda is to shit down all hunting and all shooting they have already gone on record stating that deer numbers should be allowed to boom and bust naturally.
I think there are important conservation repercussions of any such policy which should be discussed.
Giles – you have made a gross and offensive error. In your penultimate paragraph the correct preposition is “on”; “down” is incorrect.
oops! 😛
u read to the end! 😀
Talking is always good and the internet is an ideal forum for it. In that light it’s a real shame that LACS rigidly control what views can and can’t be expressed on their blogs &c. I would draw a sharp contrast between the stances of LACS and for example Jim Barrington who’s blog is here: http://jamesbarrington.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/grandstanding-on-the-grand-national/
Jim allows comments on his blog from people with completely opposing views to his own and moreover he is willing to engage with them. For Joe Duckworth or indeed anyone from LACS to do something like this is unimaginable.
The reason for this is that their are actually many flaws in their position that would not stand up to scrutiny.
For example they say they oppose cruelty but they oppose the law being changed to make all cruelty illegal.
They say shooting foxes is humane but shooting badgers is not as it can wound them.
They claim to fully support the Hunting Act yet they put out videos where the law is not being broken and claim the activities shown are cruel.
If what these videos depict is cruelty then if all cruelty were illegal the perpetrators could be prosecuted.
Giles – thanks for a very thoughtful comment.
It is very likely that fox hunting has over the years preserved many woods that might otherwise have been removed for agriculture. However, fox hunting has probably had little ecological impact – other, perhaps, than being the ultimate individual vs population issue: its been pretty tough on the foxes hunted down & torn apart by hounds, but has probably actually benefitted fox populations overall.
The deer issue is rather different – they clearly do have a massive ecological impact. The ‘leave them to get on with it’ argument only really works if you have an intact ecosystem – and we don’t, in addition to which as Oliver Rackham and George Peterken argued so effectively the ecological uniqueness of our ancient woods is the extraordinary interaction of man and nature over centuries, probably millennia. Something many people have great difficulty understanding, and of growing importance in a world lurching towards the simplistic & black and white (and that includes quite a lot of conservation thinking).
But what about ‘pleasure’ in shooting deer ? A bit hard to define really – perhaps a non issue where people are paid to do the shooting ? It may be a moral cop out but I would say I’m not too bothered so long as shooting is carried out to a proper environment based plan – where deer numbers are kept high to produce more ‘heads’ for paying stalkers I’d have the same strong objections as where woods aren’t managed because of keeper’s concerns over disturbing the pheasants – both are ecologically damaging.
some good points Roderick I have never shot a deer but people clearly do enjoy it. But wrt paying people do do the shooting many landowners simply will not do this. People taking pleasure in the process means that landowners can get paid by others for the opportunity to sport hunt deer on their land. This I beleive was the situation with Brian May.
As you say any shooting should be done in a manner that benefits overall conservation. It seems to me that as an issue that should always trump moral concerns about whether people have ‘fun’ or not.
I’d actually go so far as to say people should enjoy themselves and we do not have the right to demand they don’t.
Yes, of course it’s good to talk to a variety of different organisations, Mark; and good to hear contradictory views as well. But I’m afraid I tend to share the concern about the RSPB’s involvement at this event. For a body that is obliged under its charter to be neutral about shooting to provide the keynote speaker at what is manifestly an anti-shooting symposium, strikes me as a trifle risky to say the least; however much you might disagree, both here and on Twitter, it does lay the RSPB open to the perception that it supports the objectives of the LACS.
It is totally different from your attendance in the past at the Game Fair, where the RSPB has its own stand and you would often appear as a member of a panel where different points of view were represented. Similarly, I wouldn’t fault your even-handed approach then to dealing with opposing factions in relation to a given contentious issue.
But as far as I can see from the agenda, all the presentations and seminars at this event are overtly hostile to shooting. I fear the RSPB may come to regret their prominent role in associating with such a vocal and by definition unbalanced pressure group.
In my more “black and white” days, I might have sympathised with LACS I guess.
But in my greying days I’m generally just bemused by them.
What next for LACS?
Banning coarse fishing?
I find it really strange the RSPB getting involved with all sorts of people often helping promote things which is essentially a good thing but they seem to get absolutely nothing back in return and that is not how friends work.
Example,RSPB have made noise to help Bees with the e-petition against neonicotinoids so helping 38 degrees get 250,000 signatures but did 38 degrees reciprocate with the Hen Harrier petition.In fact maybe the RSPB even did not do as much for the Hen Harrier petition as they did for the Badgers and Bees.In short they have in my humble opinion sadly lost their way.
Dennis – interesting comment.
Dennis. Not sure I agree, but its fair to say your comment seems to sum up a lot of peoples views right now re the rspb. Far more than I ever remember anyway.
It is indeed good to talk and some good points in all of the answers however I do not believe it is just the Countryside alliance that regard the LACS as extremist it’s a pretty generally held view!
Their latest video of the quantock staghounds is covertly filmed from a hedge using long distance camera equipment. It contains extended footage of a three year old girl playing on her own. Presumably the child belongs to one of the hunters.
I personally am absolutely staggered that they would do this. They have been talking about the existence of a war and then they publish covert footage of someone’s very young child!!!!
Is that the way a responsible organisation would act? Would the RSPB do that? I seriously doubt it.
This raises all sorts of issues in my view. It is deeply provocative.
How would any parent feel if an organisation put up such covert footage of their child on the internet? I would be livid!
Just because people hunt they should not be treated in this way.
Doug Mack D,it actually gives me no pleasure to be critical of RSPB as mostly in my opinion they do a great job and have some wonderful helpful staff that cannot be beaten but think some of those in high office are making some bad decisions going in different ways to increase membership and I doubt it will work,they seem to be saying one thing and doing another which makes it all look unethical in my opinion.