Great going Mark, and perhaps reflective of the late surge in the previous e-petition which I felt was just starting to accelerate away. We must keep up the momentum and strive to tap new audiences!
Lets not flag though, we have to get it above the 30somethingK of the last one, so lets keep on pushing and being pushy over this. If anyone is at a college or works at a community hall, why not print out some leaflets with the petition details on it and leave them around a bit? Please? I’ve risked the wrath of my employer by talking about this and surreptitiously leaving some around. If I were a bit more able bodied, I’d be leafleting the local carparks too. Unfortunately the days I was mobile enough to do that are passed, but something perhaps the more able and mobile among us could consider? Keep the pressure on, get the word out. Whether you include pictures of those dead hares or poisoned eagle are up to you.
Really can’t wait to read Government response when it reaches 100,000.
Best Easter egg yet!
I find the thought of raptor persecution thoroughly abhorrent, and I have little doubt who are the culprits. However, I feel I can not sign your signature because, being an active shooter I firmly believe that once driven grouse is removed you will simply move onto the next subject to try and remove shooting as a pastime/country sport in the UK. I read too many broad-brush generalisations from lobbyists directed at virtually any individual who owns a shotgun or firearm.
Those of us who would like to see an end to raptor persecution, and wildlife crime in general share a common goal. Mark I absolutely admire your commitment, though some of the comments I’ve read on this blog, directed towards large sections of the shooting community are, I feel, only making your/our common goals that much harder to achieve.
Like yourself I enjoy shooting and explained via this blog why I couldn’t sign the first petition. However the behaviour of some members of the shooting community and their/our representatives since, has spurred me on to not only sign the last two but actively encourage others to sign.
I am aware a proportion of people are totally anti-shooting and would like to see it banned, but to me one of the greatest threats to shooting is the total intransigence of large parts of the fieldsports community and the strong reactions which this position creates.
I presume you are a member of some organisations who peddle the ‘shootings good for the countryside’ type stuff, which many shooters take at face value and continually quote? Well please do what I do and challenge them on their stand. This also applies to folk on the other ‘side’ too. The pro-shooting/hunting organisations don’t have a monopoly on this, there’s guff from the ‘conservationists’ side too.
In a relatively free and tolerant society there should be little problem with hunting/shooting continuing BUT at the moment the ‘cost’ to the rest of society appears to be far to high. No single group has the right to have so much power over the destruction of large parts of our native fauna for the benefit and enjoyment of the few and that’s one of the reasons I have signed the petition this time round and think you should too.
I dont like shooting that much, but I am not closed to the concept of hunting….. I would ban all forms of canned killing ie driven grouse, and anything that involves breeding and releasing species to be killed. If you just want target practice…shoot clays…as many as youike.
Some people will be completely anti-shooting and hoping to use this as a wedge issue, others will be just concerned about the damage the current driven grouse management regime is doing and hoping to use the mere threat of a ban as a force to change it, and others again will be pushing for its ban and a rewilding of the moors, some again will be more concerned about its use in land reform than actual grouse shooting bans, and….well pretty much anything and everything inbetween and beyond.
Might I suggest you do what I do and take it one issue at a time. Shooting and hunting is a well established tradition in the UK, there all sorts of it, it is unlikely (I’d say impossible) that just banning driven grouse (if it ever comes to that, rather than -what I think is more likely- a stronger system of control and oversight of the sport) will cause all the dominoes to topple and have shooting banned. There would be a lot more general resistance, even from those of us who want the canned driven grouse hunts banned, the idea of the jolly farmer or jolly keeper taking one or two for the pot is too well ingrained. It’d be nigh on impossible to enforce for starters. Stick to the immediate issue and worry about the rest when or if it happens.
Right now I want the driven grouse industry shut down. It is responsible for flash flooding, environmental degradation, raptor persecution, and much much more. It needs to go here and now. Everything else, forget it. One issue at a time.
(incidentally if you are wondering; my next issue would be making hounds on fox hunts wear muzzles whenever they are being run, stop people claiming their drag hunt or their flushing the fox has just “accidentally” gone wrong when the hounds rip the fox apart instead of following the bag or letting a shotgun holder dispatch the beast more cleanly. If muzzles are required then we’d have a nice legal brightline in who was following the law or not. Note: not calling for running hounds or hunting to be banned, and it absolutely requires a shooter in some cases)
Although you make some fair points Random22, below is exactly the the general comment that really frustrates me in this (and other hunting/shooting) debate.
“The problem is that to approach that point, the shooting industry needs to accept the need for change, something it has thus far resolutely resisted.”
There is no “shooting industry”!! There are forms of shooting that are carried out on for financial reasons, and others that are not. Driven Grouse is a ‘shooting industry’ of sorts, but it bears absolutely no resemblance to the rough shooter who likes to bring some game home for the pot with the exception that a gun is used. I don’t shoot driven grouse, I have no intention of ever, and I have absolutely zero responsibility for those who abuse the law. It’s the same as suggesting dog owners need to work out they together can prevent dogs from being used for badger baiting. It’s a frustratingly myopic view with a primary goal of pigeonholing anyone who owns a gun as being partly responsible for the actions of a tiny minority, for no other reason than both will take a bird with a gun. The only fundamental rules all shooters must adhere to are those set out in their FAC/SGC and to the general licence. It’s not the responsibility of those who do hunt/shoot within those reasonable conditions to shoulder any blame for those who don’t, the same as a dog owner isn’t partly responsible for those who bait badgers.
Whilst I wholly agree, the ongoing raptor persecution is sickeningly depressing, whilst I see comments such as these, I will not support any form of banning petition as those who ignorantly lay the responsibility on the shooting community as a whole undoubtedly see that same community as both partly responsible and the next target after driven grouse.
When I, and undoubtedly the rest of the shooting community see a more thoughtful attitude towards understanding what the real problem is, perhaps there may well be a more cohesive fight against this abhorrent practice. It’s the actions of a tiny criminal minority, to serve a similarly ignorant minority, yet it’s the entire shooting community who should “accept the need for change”. What is it, exactly, that I personally need to change?
Of course there’s a shooting industry Cogswell. You have your representative bodies, your research institute, trade fairs. Aren’t we incessantly told how many jobs the industry supports? In the same way that there’s a birding industry! The fact individuals may interpret their engagement with that industry in different ways is a different matter.
Oh of course there is a shooting industry. Where else do you think guns come from (or are maintained by), ammunition sold and distributed for (please, ban lead, it isn’t good metal to be scattering over the moors or shoving in foodstuffs and alternatives are freely available and often manufactured by the same brands), books, clothing, and countless other accessories are made by and sold by the shooting industry. Lobby groups surround and support in every govt. consultation, land is actively bought for and by it, hotels host shooting parties, there are even dedicated firms who only organize shooting holidays, and much, much more that I haven’t mentioned.
There is no doubt there is a shooting industry. That industry supports many diverse shooting communities though, albeit often with the same products (again, please do not use lead shot even when taking potshots at a few scrappy feral pigeons in some field somewhere). I’ll agree that there are many diverse shooting communities and I would hate to see them all tarred with the same brush (unless they are using leadshot…etc) as the driven grouse subset of the industry, but that is what is happening. Look at how the Countryside Alliance, which set out to represent all countryside trades including organic farmers and conservation bodies was subverted by the hunting with hounds brigade and then lost all credibility because of it. That is what is happening to the shooting communities because the shooting industry behind them has been subverted by the very high spending driven grouse community.
Please, sign the petition. It might be the only way to save the shooting industry and the shooting communities by shutting down the driven grouse section. Letting it roll on will almost certainly mean that the groups you support (and, full disclosure here, I used to do field shooting and falconry myself before disability made it too hard for me) are tied ever closer to a group with negative PR who wants to feed of your good PR. That never works well in the long term, just ask the Lib Dems.
Illegal Hen Harrier persecution is abhorrent, full stop. There is no excuse. Yet I strongly feel that a ban on Grouse shooting, regardless of how emotive, is rather like throwing out the baby with the bath water. The RSPB report, forwarded by yourself Mark, in 2005 strongly indicted that a wide variety of other bird species on managed Grouse moors benefit hugely from predator control when viewed alongside those same species on unmanaged moors. Further more other conservation bodies continue to use controlled as a of improving species habitat.
Personally I’d rather see us all collectively behind the HH joint recovery plan whilst campaigning for heavier sentencing and sanctions against ALL those who continue to break the law…but illegal persecution needs to be clearly proven, not just hinted at. This week’s release report into the death of a male HH was shambolic to say the least. I’ve yet to see a court case fought and won on ‘maybe’s’. I’m stunned that metallic residue was not found on the carcass and still the bird was labelled as having ‘possibly’ been shot.
This will not do. It was either shot, in which case there needs to be clear proof and a culprit sought and brought to justice, or it wasn’t. To stop these heinous acts we need to work together…as Cogwell says, shooting and conservation need to work together in open trust, not apart constantly under suspicion.
The problem is that to approach that point, the shooting industry needs to accept the need for change, something it has thus far resolutely resisted.
Like others I am not opposed to shooting per se, but its scale in terms of releases, use of medication and impacts on habitats and other species etc., have now gone way way over what I see as being an ecologically sustainable threshold. The industry has to recognise the need for reform.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
So come on shooters organisations stop taking the piss and engage.
If you don’t I fear most shooting will be a thing of the past.
I don’t have a general problem with shooting for the pot …… I do have a problem with the long term ecological consequences of intensive grouse moor management and the related behaviours of some of the followers of DGS and their toadies. Their lack of respect for the living is only exceeded by their lack of respect for the dead.
Open discussion and co-operation by all involved is needed to come to terms with these issues – transparency must be maintained at all times by all authorities and associated parties. Only then will raptor persecution, and the atrocities associated with driven grouse shooting, become a thing of the past.
Just noticed we are now down to two constituencies;
Barking (anyone know Billy Bragg? He must still have got some muckers around there)
Bexleyheath & Crayford
I listened to Mark’s talk on this topic at the Devon Birds meeting this week, and I bought Inglorious and have nearly read it. I wonder if some of these commenters such as Cogswell and Willow have? At the talk, and in the book, Mark clearly explains he is not against all shooting, and has done it himself. He’s not even against all grouse shooting, only driven. He agrees about the benefits for curlew and some other birds, but pros and cons have to be weighed.
And I have recently learned why mountain hare are shot in such numbers, as well as raptors, and, I began to wonder, what else happens in the name of driven grouse shooting?
I’ve not said it was Mark Avery who was responsible for the comments I’ve read, I said it was comments I’d read on this blog (as in the comments section). The majority of which are accompanied by a swathe of ‘likes’. Whilst I see such a binary, polarising view of the shooting community then what choice do I have but to support the shooting community as a whole? There is a tiny criminal minority who are responsible for raptor persecution, it infuriates me to be bundled in with them because I shoot.
How do you define ‘tiny criminal minority’? One rogue keeper?, ten?, a hundred?, a thousand?
Just Barking now.
Jim – aren’t we all? 😉
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Great going Mark, and perhaps reflective of the late surge in the previous e-petition which I felt was just starting to accelerate away. We must keep up the momentum and strive to tap new audiences!
Lets not flag though, we have to get it above the 30somethingK of the last one, so lets keep on pushing and being pushy over this. If anyone is at a college or works at a community hall, why not print out some leaflets with the petition details on it and leave them around a bit? Please? I’ve risked the wrath of my employer by talking about this and surreptitiously leaving some around. If I were a bit more able bodied, I’d be leafleting the local carparks too. Unfortunately the days I was mobile enough to do that are passed, but something perhaps the more able and mobile among us could consider? Keep the pressure on, get the word out. Whether you include pictures of those dead hares or poisoned eagle are up to you.
Really can’t wait to read Government response when it reaches 100,000.
Best Easter egg yet!
I find the thought of raptor persecution thoroughly abhorrent, and I have little doubt who are the culprits. However, I feel I can not sign your signature because, being an active shooter I firmly believe that once driven grouse is removed you will simply move onto the next subject to try and remove shooting as a pastime/country sport in the UK. I read too many broad-brush generalisations from lobbyists directed at virtually any individual who owns a shotgun or firearm.
Those of us who would like to see an end to raptor persecution, and wildlife crime in general share a common goal. Mark I absolutely admire your commitment, though some of the comments I’ve read on this blog, directed towards large sections of the shooting community are, I feel, only making your/our common goals that much harder to achieve.
Like yourself I enjoy shooting and explained via this blog why I couldn’t sign the first petition. However the behaviour of some members of the shooting community and their/our representatives since, has spurred me on to not only sign the last two but actively encourage others to sign.
I am aware a proportion of people are totally anti-shooting and would like to see it banned, but to me one of the greatest threats to shooting is the total intransigence of large parts of the fieldsports community and the strong reactions which this position creates.
I presume you are a member of some organisations who peddle the ‘shootings good for the countryside’ type stuff, which many shooters take at face value and continually quote? Well please do what I do and challenge them on their stand. This also applies to folk on the other ‘side’ too. The pro-shooting/hunting organisations don’t have a monopoly on this, there’s guff from the ‘conservationists’ side too.
In a relatively free and tolerant society there should be little problem with hunting/shooting continuing BUT at the moment the ‘cost’ to the rest of society appears to be far to high. No single group has the right to have so much power over the destruction of large parts of our native fauna for the benefit and enjoyment of the few and that’s one of the reasons I have signed the petition this time round and think you should too.
I dont like shooting that much, but I am not closed to the concept of hunting….. I would ban all forms of canned killing ie driven grouse, and anything that involves breeding and releasing species to be killed. If you just want target practice…shoot clays…as many as youike.
Some people will be completely anti-shooting and hoping to use this as a wedge issue, others will be just concerned about the damage the current driven grouse management regime is doing and hoping to use the mere threat of a ban as a force to change it, and others again will be pushing for its ban and a rewilding of the moors, some again will be more concerned about its use in land reform than actual grouse shooting bans, and….well pretty much anything and everything inbetween and beyond.
Might I suggest you do what I do and take it one issue at a time. Shooting and hunting is a well established tradition in the UK, there all sorts of it, it is unlikely (I’d say impossible) that just banning driven grouse (if it ever comes to that, rather than -what I think is more likely- a stronger system of control and oversight of the sport) will cause all the dominoes to topple and have shooting banned. There would be a lot more general resistance, even from those of us who want the canned driven grouse hunts banned, the idea of the jolly farmer or jolly keeper taking one or two for the pot is too well ingrained. It’d be nigh on impossible to enforce for starters. Stick to the immediate issue and worry about the rest when or if it happens.
Right now I want the driven grouse industry shut down. It is responsible for flash flooding, environmental degradation, raptor persecution, and much much more. It needs to go here and now. Everything else, forget it. One issue at a time.
(incidentally if you are wondering; my next issue would be making hounds on fox hunts wear muzzles whenever they are being run, stop people claiming their drag hunt or their flushing the fox has just “accidentally” gone wrong when the hounds rip the fox apart instead of following the bag or letting a shotgun holder dispatch the beast more cleanly. If muzzles are required then we’d have a nice legal brightline in who was following the law or not. Note: not calling for running hounds or hunting to be banned, and it absolutely requires a shooter in some cases)
Although you make some fair points Random22, below is exactly the the general comment that really frustrates me in this (and other hunting/shooting) debate.
“The problem is that to approach that point, the shooting industry needs to accept the need for change, something it has thus far resolutely resisted.”
There is no “shooting industry”!! There are forms of shooting that are carried out on for financial reasons, and others that are not. Driven Grouse is a ‘shooting industry’ of sorts, but it bears absolutely no resemblance to the rough shooter who likes to bring some game home for the pot with the exception that a gun is used. I don’t shoot driven grouse, I have no intention of ever, and I have absolutely zero responsibility for those who abuse the law. It’s the same as suggesting dog owners need to work out they together can prevent dogs from being used for badger baiting. It’s a frustratingly myopic view with a primary goal of pigeonholing anyone who owns a gun as being partly responsible for the actions of a tiny minority, for no other reason than both will take a bird with a gun. The only fundamental rules all shooters must adhere to are those set out in their FAC/SGC and to the general licence. It’s not the responsibility of those who do hunt/shoot within those reasonable conditions to shoulder any blame for those who don’t, the same as a dog owner isn’t partly responsible for those who bait badgers.
Whilst I wholly agree, the ongoing raptor persecution is sickeningly depressing, whilst I see comments such as these, I will not support any form of banning petition as those who ignorantly lay the responsibility on the shooting community as a whole undoubtedly see that same community as both partly responsible and the next target after driven grouse.
When I, and undoubtedly the rest of the shooting community see a more thoughtful attitude towards understanding what the real problem is, perhaps there may well be a more cohesive fight against this abhorrent practice. It’s the actions of a tiny criminal minority, to serve a similarly ignorant minority, yet it’s the entire shooting community who should “accept the need for change”. What is it, exactly, that I personally need to change?
Of course there’s a shooting industry Cogswell. You have your representative bodies, your research institute, trade fairs. Aren’t we incessantly told how many jobs the industry supports? In the same way that there’s a birding industry! The fact individuals may interpret their engagement with that industry in different ways is a different matter.
Oh of course there is a shooting industry. Where else do you think guns come from (or are maintained by), ammunition sold and distributed for (please, ban lead, it isn’t good metal to be scattering over the moors or shoving in foodstuffs and alternatives are freely available and often manufactured by the same brands), books, clothing, and countless other accessories are made by and sold by the shooting industry. Lobby groups surround and support in every govt. consultation, land is actively bought for and by it, hotels host shooting parties, there are even dedicated firms who only organize shooting holidays, and much, much more that I haven’t mentioned.
There is no doubt there is a shooting industry. That industry supports many diverse shooting communities though, albeit often with the same products (again, please do not use lead shot even when taking potshots at a few scrappy feral pigeons in some field somewhere). I’ll agree that there are many diverse shooting communities and I would hate to see them all tarred with the same brush (unless they are using leadshot…etc) as the driven grouse subset of the industry, but that is what is happening. Look at how the Countryside Alliance, which set out to represent all countryside trades including organic farmers and conservation bodies was subverted by the hunting with hounds brigade and then lost all credibility because of it. That is what is happening to the shooting communities because the shooting industry behind them has been subverted by the very high spending driven grouse community.
Please, sign the petition. It might be the only way to save the shooting industry and the shooting communities by shutting down the driven grouse section. Letting it roll on will almost certainly mean that the groups you support (and, full disclosure here, I used to do field shooting and falconry myself before disability made it too hard for me) are tied ever closer to a group with negative PR who wants to feed of your good PR. That never works well in the long term, just ask the Lib Dems.
Illegal Hen Harrier persecution is abhorrent, full stop. There is no excuse. Yet I strongly feel that a ban on Grouse shooting, regardless of how emotive, is rather like throwing out the baby with the bath water. The RSPB report, forwarded by yourself Mark, in 2005 strongly indicted that a wide variety of other bird species on managed Grouse moors benefit hugely from predator control when viewed alongside those same species on unmanaged moors. Further more other conservation bodies continue to use controlled as a of improving species habitat.
Personally I’d rather see us all collectively behind the HH joint recovery plan whilst campaigning for heavier sentencing and sanctions against ALL those who continue to break the law…but illegal persecution needs to be clearly proven, not just hinted at. This week’s release report into the death of a male HH was shambolic to say the least. I’ve yet to see a court case fought and won on ‘maybe’s’. I’m stunned that metallic residue was not found on the carcass and still the bird was labelled as having ‘possibly’ been shot.
This will not do. It was either shot, in which case there needs to be clear proof and a culprit sought and brought to justice, or it wasn’t. To stop these heinous acts we need to work together…as Cogwell says, shooting and conservation need to work together in open trust, not apart constantly under suspicion.
The problem is that to approach that point, the shooting industry needs to accept the need for change, something it has thus far resolutely resisted.
Like others I am not opposed to shooting per se, but its scale in terms of releases, use of medication and impacts on habitats and other species etc., have now gone way way over what I see as being an ecologically sustainable threshold. The industry has to recognise the need for reform.
Couldn’t agree with you more.
So come on shooters organisations stop taking the piss and engage.
If you don’t I fear most shooting will be a thing of the past.
I don’t have a general problem with shooting for the pot …… I do have a problem with the long term ecological consequences of intensive grouse moor management and the related behaviours of some of the followers of DGS and their toadies. Their lack of respect for the living is only exceeded by their lack of respect for the dead.
Open discussion and co-operation by all involved is needed to come to terms with these issues – transparency must be maintained at all times by all authorities and associated parties. Only then will raptor persecution, and the atrocities associated with driven grouse shooting, become a thing of the past.
Just noticed we are now down to two constituencies;
Barking (anyone know Billy Bragg? He must still have got some muckers around there)
Bexleyheath & Crayford
I listened to Mark’s talk on this topic at the Devon Birds meeting this week, and I bought Inglorious and have nearly read it. I wonder if some of these commenters such as Cogswell and Willow have? At the talk, and in the book, Mark clearly explains he is not against all shooting, and has done it himself. He’s not even against all grouse shooting, only driven. He agrees about the benefits for curlew and some other birds, but pros and cons have to be weighed.
And I have recently learned why mountain hare are shot in such numbers, as well as raptors, and, I began to wonder, what else happens in the name of driven grouse shooting?
I’ve not said it was Mark Avery who was responsible for the comments I’ve read, I said it was comments I’d read on this blog (as in the comments section). The majority of which are accompanied by a swathe of ‘likes’. Whilst I see such a binary, polarising view of the shooting community then what choice do I have but to support the shooting community as a whole? There is a tiny criminal minority who are responsible for raptor persecution, it infuriates me to be bundled in with them because I shoot.
How do you define ‘tiny criminal minority’? One rogue keeper?, ten?, a hundred?, a thousand?
Just Barking now.
Jim – aren’t we all? 😉