So, that’s the end of the Red Grouse shooting season for another year. One year, not so far away, it will end for good.
Last week the Moorland Association and BASC published their ‘misinfographic’ on grouse shooting – the one about which I have contacted the ASA.
This week, the League Against Cruel Sports produced their equivalent infographic and sent it to all MPs.
It’s a straight choice – which do you think sums up the science best?
Please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting.
And, while you are at it, why not, write to your MP and say the same thing?
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Great stuff Mark-the evidence speaks for itself.
As an aside, it was the first time l’d seen the LACS ” up close” yesterday and I have to say I was mightily impressed with them-no compromise in their message whatsoever.
In that regard they put some other conservation NGOs to shame.
‘Scottish upland woods’? Are we talking about the widespread tax dodging sterile sitka slum or native birch, rowan, willow etc.?
May be referring to relicts of the Old Caledonian Pine forest, certainly rich in native biodiversity, but clearly assemblages of species in woodland are going to be different, both in character and density, to those found on open moorland.
Worth reading Dr James Fenton’s latest analysis, amongst other things, of the relative merits of moorlands over upland woodlands when it comes to carbon sequestration properties. He is convinced of the superiority of moorland, see here – http://tinyurl.com/nq6hdnq
He concludes with the following:
“It is by no means certain that encouraging woodland onto open moorland through grazing reduction or tree planting will mitigate climate change: it could even accelerate climate change through causing carbon stored in the soil to be released to the atmosphere, particularly from wet heath. Additionally, many current areas of moorland could succeed to peat-forming ecosystems in the long-term, hence eventually storing more carbon than is possible in a forest. It should be noted that planting trees on the mineral rich soils of the lowlands will help mitigate climate changes because there is little carbon stored in these soils”.
Thank for that brilliant link. Confirms what many of us have been saying for a long time. Planting spruce on fragile upland soils and claiming you are creating a carbon sink is a complete nonsense.
Pete,
No snags, Dr James Fenton is a very interesting and original thinker, with bags of experience in the field – BAS, NTS, SNH, Falkland Islands Conservation etc – see here http://www.james-hc-fenton.eu/page4.html .
He advocates a ‘New Paradigm’ for NW Scotland – http://www.james-hc-fenton.eu/page19.html – and has proposed developing a Moorland Strategy to complement (or balance depending upon your view) the Scottish Government’s Forestry Strategy – target is for 25% forest cover in the country! See here – http://www.james-hc-fenton.eu/Essays/6.%20Moorland%20strategy%20scoping%20-%20J%20Fenton%20-%20March%202014.pdf
For once, I agree. Red grouse shooting will, of course, go the way of black grouse shooting, as a direct result of, amongst other things, all the unevidenced assertions that you propagate.
Both forms of shooting have already finished, forever, in the Southwest of England.
And with them, so have curlew, plover and many other waders, ground nesting birds, finished, forever, regionally extinct as breeding species.
That is the future for the birdlife of the uplands of the rest of England that you seem determined to create.