The GWCT (Gunning wildlife, conserving tadpoles) thrash around in a complete dither these days.
They don’t know whether they are coming or going – quite literally. Having said that they would be pleased to field someone for the Bird Fair debate on whether driven grouse shooting should be banned they have now come back to me to say that they cannot find a single person from their membership or supporters who will face a friendly Bird Fair audience and argue for their ‘sport’. Where are you Beefy Botham? Ian Coghill? Teresa Dent? Duke of Westminster? Earl Peel? Charles Moore? Nicholas Soames? Paul Dacre? Magnus Linklater? Philip Astor? You can’t all be blasting away at Red Grouse that day surely? Andrew Gilruth is on holiday – fair enough, but he does seem to be the only person ever prepared to try to defend the grouse shooting industry.
But Gunning Wildlife, Conserving Tadpoles is very worried about vowels because ‘some managers’ are ‘reporting’ a ‘significant decline’ in vowels this year. This is clearly a bit of a defensive move which is trying to frame the Hen Harrier crash in England as being due to lack of vowels in the hills. Hn Harrirs are wll known to b partial to th odd vowel – thy ar particularly kn on ‘e’s. No ‘e’s and Hn Harrir numbrs plummt is what I suppos GWCT ar trying to tll us.
GWCT said ‘W dn’t knw what w re dng rlly. W cn’t fc th wrld wth rgmnts s pr s th ns w pblsh n r blg. Why sn’t nyn lstnng t s nymr? Whr hv ll the vowls gn?’
The RSPB said ‘We welcome this statement from the GWCT – it makes as much sense as any of their others.‘
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I am quite happy to accept that in natural circumstances it would have been a poor year for Hen Harriers due to a late spring and a vole low. However between colonisation in the late 60’s and 2013 there had always been nesting attempts in England, especially Bowland, some of those years were poor harrier years too for the same reasons yet some birds always bred. The real reason there are so few birds to nest is nothing to do with voles or weather it is quite simply that birds are still killed in the uplands, where are all the satellite tagged birds from the last few years?
It’s my belief along with many other raptor workers that they are all dead. If they are dead the chances are all their untagged siblings are also dead. DEAD BIRDS DON’T LAY EGGS. GWCT and the MA seem unable or unwilling to control their members so their “support” of the Harrier plan means absolutely nothing.
Remember Harrier decoys in The Peak, pole traps, yes bloody barbaric banned for over 100 years pole traps, on a moor in the Dales where there is a hunting harrier. Enough said!
Perhaps GWCT could helpfully provide a plot of spring vole numbers over say the last ten years on members moors, against harrier settling and breeding success? Just so we can see the point they’re making…
“A simple answer, too many birds of prey and the lack Hedgehogs, Bumble bees and low nesting birds, too many Badges!!”
There you have it – too many badges. Hedgehogs & Bumble bees protect voles, badges don’t.
43,000 signatures 🙂
I guess you could always try dear old Robin Page. I’m sure he would jump at the opportunity to educate an audience of well meaning ‘do-gooders’. If Robin isn’t available then how about the kindly Martin Gillibrand – that’s assuming he’s allowed to talk publically about grouse shooting these days.
‘This is clearly a bit of a defensive move which is trying to frame the Hen Harrier crash in England as being due to lack of vowels in the hills.’
Next they will be blaming the drop in voles on Hen Harriers.
On Mull a local councillor and some farmers claim White-tailed Eagles are responsible for a decline in Puffins, Mountain Hares, Rabbits (yes really), full grown ewes and of course babies.
God, i was just joking but there it is, the first comment on the GCT link (the W dropped on purpose). Surely Chris Bates was being sarcastic. Poe’s Law?
It gets better, check out the 4th comment, by Phil Fairless!
It’s priceless isn’t it? – travellers being hired to kill raptors in order to discredit the grouse shooting industry?!
I googled Mr Fairless and it appears one of his chums is the infamous Duncan Thomas (quelle surprise!) – who incidentally is now BASC’s Northern England Director. What an earth has happened to BASC? It’s as though the CA, GWCT and BASC are in a desperate race to the bottom.
I attempted to comment on Mr Fairless’s fantasy suggesting that it was rather more likely that the travellers were having a little fun at his expense than anyone was paying them to discredit grouse shooting. I also suggested that this would be a waste of funds since the industry is perfectly capable of doing so for free. Oddly enough the comment seems to have been binned
I have to hand it to WCT for allowing this to slip through the propaganda filter
‘It is possible that this is why arable land in Britain is not attractive to hen harriers; it would not provide sufficient food for breeding’.
But next week they will be telling us how good the lowlands are for Hen Harrier introduction.
It’s all Welsh to me. They are afraid of taking you on Mark.
I thought it would be the weather first, but vole numbers are just as good. Whatever it is, it couldn’t possibly be that all the potential breeders have been killed by people.
I was musing on the fact that it no nearly 40 years since I watched spring male Hen Harriers cruising the moorland edge of Cropton Forest in the North Yorks Moors. There were rare reports of nesting attempts but I’m not sure HH have ever raised young in that time in the NYM ?