Did you notice that we have passed the previous best total for signatures on an e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting? Last time around it took six months, that must be 26 weeks, to reach 33,655 signatures – and I thought that was pretty amazing really – but this time around we passed that total in six weeks.
So 20 weeks to go. I’d now be disappointed if we didn’t sail past 50,000 signatures, and a bit disappointed if we didn’t get to 66,666 signatures. But we’ll see.
There is just the possibility that we might reach 100,000 signatures this time around. If so, I guess we’d need to get to 66,666 around 20 July and then have a manic two months to try to add another 33,334 by 20 September.
Who’s up for getting to 100,000?
If you are, and I certainly am (let’s give it our best shot!), here are some hints:
- please ask your friends and colleagues to sign – if everyone who has signed got one more person to sign next week then we’d double our numbers straight away.
- if you use social media then please grow your network over the next few weeks and months for a big push in August and September – the more followers you have in the UK, the more you can help to spread the word.
- if you know of a someone who edits/writes a newsletter (electronic or paper) who you think might be interested in an article on why we should end driven grouse shooting, then please put them in touch with me and I will do my best to give them some free copy to use.
And thank you for all your support and help up to now – this is our e-petition not just mine, nor mine, Bill Oddie’s, Chris Packham’s and LACS’s (even though they all support it). It’s yours and mine – it’s ours.
And did you notice that Stroud has just joined the 100 Club?
And did you notice that Calder Valley is on 199?
And did you notice that we are very close to 34,000?
(I bet Jim Clarke did!).
Sign the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting.
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Is there some way we can link an 38 Degrees petition to this one.
A kind of petition to sign a petition.
I’m amazed at the high numbers they achieve, all well deserving.
Incidentally Argyll, i seem to remember, just got passed 100 last time but now is on 122. I guess we should be aiming for about 300.
I think the Government Petitions are restricted to those on the electoral register whereas 38 Degrees and others have a much broader demographic.
The Govt. petitions are restricted to British citizens. You do not need to be registered to vote – just over 16, I think.
Yes but it still would be way to get publicity which is all a petition is really.
Probably trying to teach my granny to suck eggs, but a few suggestions re getting some more signatures just in case they’ve not been tried. Contact your local badger group and point out that grouse moors aren’t exactly friendly to that species. There’s snaring which inspite of the new regulations can still kill and maim wildlife in a cruel, disgusting fashion. Let’s face it even if a non target species is released being in a snare hasn’t done it any favours. And of course anyone believe there’s no longer any illegal persecution? Local Transition group might be worth contacting, their approach is that they don’t like to be ‘against’ anything, technically that might rule out a petition, but worth a try and perhaps significant that the home of the Transition Movement is Totnes one of the first to reach 100. Posting the petition on ther local hunt sabs fb page saying that it is another cruel and damaging sport in its own right and that some fox hunters do it too tends to be greeted with sympathy and a few signatures. Local Greenpeace, FoE groups etc worth contacting as well. On this point though I think the best thing to do is plug away at the National offices of all these organisations and see if we can get them to support us as League Against Cruel Sports did. Their direct email to supporters got us 5,000 signatures plus in a couple of days at most. I haven’t found LACS membership figures, but I expect they are far lower than those of FoE, Greenpeace or the Green Party. The latter has a total UK membership of around 70,000! So plug away at these whether you are a member or not and point out they probably do not know the full picture re negative ecological, environmental and social effects of having grouse moors. IF any of these can be persuaded to do a direct request to their membership that means thousands of extra signatures and 100,000 is definitely achievable. In terms of best possible return for effort this must potentially be by far the best. It could be your email that finally tips them over to support the petition. Watching signatures pour in when LACS helped was beautiful, be good to experience that again! I’ll try to write in to my local paper soon, but as we don’t have any grouse moors in my District and the proposed ban would not apply here will be a tough sell. I might be able to team up with a falconer later in the year to promote the petition at Gala days etc. Maybe. Would be great if someone got the chance to do this and see how it works. Last year a falconer at Denny Gala Day must have spoken to several hundred people who were obviously interested in his birds, would certainly have been disgusted at what happens to them on grouse moors, but how do you turn that into signatures exactly? Was a bloody good way to get the message out there, but how do you include it? And of course plug ‘Inglorious’. I was in touch with a member of the Scottish Green Party who told me after reading it they now want a ban, her colleagues need to read it too!
I’m still waiting from Wirral & Cheshire Badger group (to which I belong) to reply to my request to promote the petition.
However, those of you who are Animal Aid subscribers will see the petition is being promoted on today’s alert.
Well done Mark and everyone else. Let’s get to 100,000!
Noticed it’s over past the 34k ….
Well done, as you say still a way to go but where there’s a will there’s a way as they say in some parts (t)hereabouts?
100 Club Update
30. South Cambridgeshire
And (as previously announced);
200 Club Update
1. Calder Valley
100 Club Update
31. York Central (Yorkshire’s 7th 100+ constituency)
Jim – you are very quick off the mark!
Over to you for the afternoon Mark, I’m off birding!
Jim – good for you. Hope you have more success than I did this morning (although I made another BBS visit).
PS. I’ve repeated my questions to Martin Harper on his blog http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2016/05/02/the-rspb-and-grouse-shooting.aspx
I think it would be fair to say I’ve not had an answer yet.
Jim, he said this on the previous blog-page comments
‘..should the petition reach the 100,000 mark and a debate does take place in Westminster, of course we would brief about the environmental consequences of driven grouse shooting and the urgent need for reform.’
I am afraid like most of what Martin says it is extremely evasive.
But reading in-between the lines i think he or they would oppose it and i fear thre facts would be biased in that the whole RSPB way of looking at moorland is biased. I say biased but perhaps old fashioned or narrow-mined are better descriptions of the RSPB’s position on this issue.
The RSPB seem to be stuck in ‘either/or’ mode. It is almost as though the rest of the world doesn’t exist or that there are no other models
I may have got this wrong as i only came across this yesterday but i believe it is a ‘base rate fallacy’.