I’ve given the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting a bit of a breather for the last few weeks but it keeps gaining signatures – 20,000 by Christmas? Might that be possible?
The grouse shooting season ends on 10 December. Wouldn’t it be great if it never opened again?
I had a nice chat to the office of the Sergeant at Arms in the Palace of Westminster last week.
Discussions are under way for what might happen on Hen Harrier Day 2015!
Other discussions are planned, with a range of folk, on how to move the Hen Harrier issue forward over the next few months.
The RSPB magazine, Nature’s Home, will have a feature on Hen Harriers in its next issue – arriving through your letterbox in early- to mid-October.
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Look forward to what will get planned for Hen Harrier day 2015,it would be nice to get details as early as possible to give followers chance to perhaps arrange other things around that event or whatever.Will also be interesting what gets arranged to move the issue forward.
Such a lot of effort from those arranging everything,feel sure all supporters appreciate all of the effort put in by all those arranging everything.
Wouldn’t it be just be the best pre-christmas present ever if 10,000 birders went for a walk and ended the grouse shooting season on 9th December. ;-))
Hi Mark
I have belatedly signed the petition albeit with some reluctance. Why the hesitancy? You’ll probably not recall but I wrote to you via email rather than on here when you launched the petition with some questions and concerns and you promptly replied graciously inviting me to take my time.
I have done that and have come to sign as I am fed up with the carnage of raptors that seems to be taking place sadly in areas even more broadly spread than our grouse moors. That’s my reason to sign but I expect there will be those who have who would sign up to any cause that seems to call a halt for the killing of animals even though healthy biodiversity demands it (eg deer, grey squirrels) while there will be others who grasp the chance of cocking a snook at all those filthy rich Tory landowners. And here’s my point: I have not read all the material you’ve worked hard to present to your readership to keep them well informed, but I have yet to see anything that proposes a sound realistic alternative to what will happen to the grouse moors if driven shooting was banned. The fact is that, while the landowners may be rich, they are probably more asset rich than cash rich and therefore have to derive income from these vast tracts of land that they own. If we take away the shooting rights what will they be replaced with? I can think of several unappealing options – 4*4 “Wilderness drives”, conifer plantations, game reserves(?) or most probably severe neglect of the essential land management to the detriment of the overall habitat, struggling upland wader populations and possibly even the Hen Harriers we are seeking to support. I’m a little uncomfortable too with the animosity that pops up now and again with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. I am not a member but, actually only since this petition was launched, have kept in touch with their issues of material and they seem to produce some really good stuff to support other loved species such as Hare. Their heart seems to be in the right place and yet, on one earlier blog here, there is almost an allegation that they will know who (some of) the Harrier killers are. Is it not better to work together?
So I have signed as I want to push this debate to a real foreground and I wish to see a stop to an activity that is severely suppressing through killing beautiful birds that should be allowed to thrive alongside another man’s right to his “sport” but not without some thoughts around being careful what you wish for. I guess though, at an election, we have to put our cross somewhere even though most of us are unlikely to ever agree with the entire manifesto.
Richard – thank you. It’s good to think hard about things.
What will happen if driven grouse shooting is banned? Not that much really because most of this land is designated. It’s a bit like owning a listed building – you can’t paint the roof purple in a fit of pique. https://markavery.info/2014/06/06/arguments-pause-signing-epetition/
Mark
Thank you for your reply and digging out your earlier piece which I hadn’t read before. I think predator control is one of those issues that makes these matters less black and white. Personally I’m not against some control on crows, even here in Wiltshire, if it gives other threatened species a bit of a helping hand but I’m not happy about seeing stoats slaughtered – inconsistent I know but I don’t think it’s too hard to find inconsistencies in our stances if one mines deep enough. I don’t completely really buy in to the listed building parallel as that is man made and is easier to preserve (not entirely) rather than conserve compared with a living landscape and I don’t quite share your faith in various protective designations to do just that against the opportunities sought from ill planned wind farms, conifers or more sheep farming. Do nothing equates to neglect and how realistic is it that we shall see “natural woodlands reappear in gullies” for example. Land nationalisation? Why on earth do we think the government will be good at land management or even better than the the current owners…
It’s a tough one. What is clear though is that the management of these lands to benefit the revenue earning grouse has gone too extreme and I agree needs to be curbed. I am certainly not claiming to be an expert in this field, simply trying to express a concerned opinion, but I suspect that, like a lot of farming, once the sport derived from the moors was in harmony with nature but has been tipped by greed and, yes, needs to be reined in: hence my signature.