Bit of a catch-up

Mark 9 Comments
  • ban driven grouse shooting e-petition stands at 15,800 signatures – please sign and promote to others. This e-petition is still in its first month.
  • ban toxic lead ammunition e-petition stands at 15,500 signatures – please sign and promote to others. This e-petition is in its last month and deserves far greater support from our major wildlife NGOs – after all, it is asking for something that is agreed WWT and RSPB policy.
  • Catfield Fen goes to a public enquiry on 19 April.
  • Natural England still have not, unless I’ve missed it, published their forward plan for SSSI notification (including the West Pennine Moors) despite promising in December, to do so ‘in the New Year’.
  • Don’t get your hair cut! Because according to the risible Baynes of Scottish Land and Estates, burning heather is like getting your hair cut in that it causes floods, increases water bills, and is part of the management strategy that requires thousands of Mountain Hares, Foxes and Stoats to be killed every year and rids the moors of protected raptors. Whatever you do, don’t get your hair cut. Of course, before men in tweed came along 150 years ago, no-one had their hair cut and we all walked along tripping over our hair.
  • take a look at the Environmentalists for Europe site.
  • I don’t like feeling sorry for Paul Dacre, and I can manage not to, but the fact that he hoovers up EU grants for his grouse moor whilst arguing for a UK Brexit doesn’t seem to me to be such an outrageous thing. If anything, those who benefit from these subsidies and are arguing for ‘remain’ are on dodgier ground.  But the sums accrued by Dacre illustrate the fact that we are all paying for what goes on in the farmed environment – through our taxes and then again through the ‘externalities’ such as increased flood risk. So get involved and send decision-makers a strong signal for change.
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9 Replies to “Bit of a catch-up”

  1. Why is it that my mind immediately flits to a Ralph Underhill cartoon of man in barber’s chair, bubble emanating from head with images of grouse moor…
    Does that Baynes fellow not realise what he is doing to us all next time we go for a trim, or of how many hairdressers and their clients will sign the petition to Ban Driven Grouse Shooting as a result!

  2. Thanks for the link to Polly Toynbee’s great article on Dacre and the toxic hypocrisy that leaches from the Daily Mail.

  3. Hans McKenzie Wilson, a head gamekeeper on the Invercauld Estate in Aberdeenshire and member of the Grampian Moorland Group, said:…

    “As every gardener will know you have to cut your lawn to keep the grass healthy and that’s what we do with heather.”

    I think part of the quote was edited out?

    Hans McKenzie Wilson, a head gamekeeper on the Invercauld Estate in Aberdeenshire and member of the Grampian

    “As every gardener will know you have to cut your lawn to keep the grass healthy to maintain an impoverished monoculture, and that’s what we do with heather.”

  4. I dread to think of the analogy that Mr Baynes might employ when describing the benefits of grip-drainage…

    I was quite amused by his assertion that degenerate heather is unattractive to wildlife:

    “Well-kept heather is very nutritious for a range of species but overgrown, rank heather as we call it is an unattractive habitat for wildlife and takes longer to regenerate, while posing a much higher wildfire risk.”

    Anybody with even the most tenuous grasp of heathland ecology must surely appreciate the ecological benefits of allowing stands of heather to complete their natural cycle of growth phases. This is basic heathland ecology!

    The ecological illiteracy of some of these tweaded numpties is mind-boggling at times.

    1. The analogy might run:
      Constant grip drainage upkeep is just like the regular ladling of gravy to maintain healthy hedge funds.

  5. Looks like we are getting towards the end game;

    https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/linklater-on-langholm-fake-facts-from-a-respected-journalist/

    So it’s going to be either legalised raptor persecution, or it’s going to be driven grouse shooting getting banned; no surprise that this was the ultimate direction of travel. Organisations clinging to a ‘middle path’ solution are irrelevant in an instant. The Hawk and Owl Trust have already sold their soul (but, at least, this should wise up any remaining members with lingering ideas that it is still a conservation organisation), but time to have a think about which side you are on RSPB?

    1. Yeah, but under a Tory government I think we can all guess which is more likely 🙁

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