In a long piece in the Daily Record on Saturday, Annie Brown (The true cost of grouse shooting) talks about the move to ban driven grouse shooting, and quotes me extensively.
In the Glasgow Herald, there is a piece entitled ‘Calls mount for ban on grouse shooting‘ where an animal welfare charity, OneKind, formerly known as Advocates for Animals, said: ‘The shooting industry is dependent on maintaining large stocks of grouse which are shot for vast sums of money throughout the season. Legal, although often cruel, methods of control are available to gamekeepers for other species which predate on grouse but this is not the case with birds of prey. Illegal persecution of raptors is blighting the industry with significant levels taking place around driven grouse moors.‘
That’s very interesting isn’t it? I’d never heard of OneKind until I read this. Throw a pebble in a pond and lots of ripples spread. The Scottish Gamekeepers Association said something apparently, but their heads were buried so deeply in the sand that only muffled shouts were heard.
Clive Aslet, in the Daily Telegraph is living in the past, or in a completely different land where he probably longs to touch the hem of the UHNWs. He points out that there are only a few pairs of Hen Harrier in England and then states that they are a ‘persistent problem for grouse moor owners‘. I think the land is Never-Never Land. In the real world, a writer for the Daily Harrier says., ‘There are only a few thousand driven grouse shooters in the world, but they are a persistent problem for Hen Harriers.’. That seems to be very true.
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I’ve just found a new facility on the e-petitions site that I was unaware of.
https://petition.parliament.uk
It allows you to see how many signed a particular petition in your own constituency. I was disappointed to see that my area with several grouse moors but also urban areas had only 32 signatures for banning driven grouse. I wonder whose constituency has the most – or least – signatures? Could be a new game with a prize for the best constituency!
The four constituencies around us show 40, 37, 30 and 24 (our own). Oxfordshire not a great grouse shooting area but we should do better!
Clive Aslet peddling the tedious lie that those opposed to the persecution of hen harriers on grouse moors are simply waging class warfare. I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss how much it costs to indulge in a day’s grouse shooting but I bitterly resent the fact that providing plenty of grouse to shoot seemingly rests on the illegal persecution of Hen Harriers and other birds of prey. Aslet may be happy to blithely ignore this illegality and enjoy the bargain of a brace of grouse that are sold for substantially less than the price of shooting them but I am not.
“Gamekeepers spend the summer burning patches of moor to create the mosaic of habitat ……………….”
If you say so Clive.
Oh to be a Countryman..
I note Robin Page, in Saturday’s Telegraph, is showing possible signs of having eaten too much lead-contaminated grouse when he both celebrates the lack of hen harriers on English moorlands and reveals the plague of rabbits that has blighted his farm. Page 3 of the Observers Book of Ecology anyone?!
Has anyone else who complained to IPSO about the Telegraph article had a response? I’ve had one saying among other things that it falls within their remit and discloses a possible breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice and therefore:
In line with IPSO’s complaints procedure, we have therefore sent a copy of your complaint to the publication. This is to provide it with the opportunity swiftly to resolve the matter to your satisfaction, directly, if possible. You should expect the publication to contact you in due course in response to your complaint. If the publication is able to satisfactorily address your concerns, and you consider that the matter has been concluded, please contact us within 14 days, to notify us of the outcome.
Having never done this before, I have no idea what the Telegraph will say when they contact me. Would it be worth us having a united approach on this?