I’m quite often asked whether I really want a ban on driven grouse shooting – I do! And then I’m sometimes told that ‘It’ll never happen’ and I say ‘It will’.
This is why.
Let’s start with the very obvious, but rarely stated, fact that driven grouse shooting is not essential. We don’t need it. Most of us would not notice if it were gone. It’s an unsporting field sport for a very few people, and it’s sometimes called an industry – but it’s an industry that produces nothing.
This is important because grouse shooting isn’t like farming, for example. We all need food, and we all need farmers. We might sometimes not like what some of them do, if they are cruel to their animals or use powerful pesticides on their crops, but on the whole we accept or turn a blind eye because we need them to produce our food. Nobody needs a grouse moor. Grouse shooting is a niche hobby like train-spotting or twitching. Providing the participants don’t do anything too nasty then many will say ‘I wouldn’t want to do that but I suppose it’s OK that they do’ most of the time.
Driven grouse shooting already has two big problems as far as winning over the public is concerned. The first is that it involves the rather unsporting prospect of killing lots, and lots, and lots, of wild birds driven towards a line of guns. It involves killing – its whole point is killing actually. And some people will be against it from the very start because of that. Personally, I find the scale of killing distasteful but that isn’t my major gripe. That’s why I am not running a ‘Ban all shooting’ campaign. But many start as opponents of this distasteful hobby because it is steeped in killing things for fun.
Then there is the ‘rich people’ issue. It’s not really a class issue, for as we have seen, many of the proponents of driven grouse shooting are loaded but not classy. A rich man’s hobby (of killing wildlife) is not the easiest thing for which to gain public support. But that’s not my main gripe with it either (although it does make it a lot more fun – let’s be honest).
No the real reason that driven grouse shooting is doomed is that it is based on intensive mismanagement of the uplands that will bring it into terminal conflict with the law, nature lovers and policy makers alike.
The first circle that cannot be squared is the Langholm study results (see Chapter 3 of Inglorious). If Langholm were typical, and we have reason to believe that it was, then you cannot have driven grouse shooting, depending on massively unnatural populations of Red Grouse to provide enormous ‘bags’ of dead Red Grouse in the presence of natural levels of birds of prey – Hen Harriers, Golden Eagles, Peregrines etc. I think the grouse shooters accepted this inevitability long before we conservationists did. It’s a choice – a clear choice. Do you want birds of prey or a useless pointless hobby for the rich which is underpinned by wildlife crime? I choose birds of prey but it’s up to you what you choose. But in the end you do have to choose because you can’t have both. The British love of compromise runs up against a brick wall when it meets biological reality. Bring the British people into this choice, like the hundreds we talked to at WOMAD a couple of weeks ago, and they will choose wildlife every time. Every time. Let’s ask them.
And with more and more satellite tags being fitted to young harriers then the more damning the evidence will be. Give it five years and the scale of illegal killing will be laid bare with birds like Annie, Sky, Hope and Bowland Bess dying in the glare of publicity. It won’t take long.
The second circle that cannot be squared is the ecological harm and damage derived from intensive habitat management for Red Grouse. Increased flood risk (and higher home insurance costs), increased greenhouse gas emissions, increased water pollution (and therefore water bills) and damaged blanket bogs are all costs of this intensive management. If you live in York and are paying higher home insurance because of grouse shooting, or live in Leeds and suffer higher water bills, grouse shooting becomes an issue for you and for the politicians and policy makers who should look out for your welfare, and the utilities who have you as a customer. The Leeds University Ember project, and a wealth of other data, add up to an environmental Langholm study – you have to choose between intensive grouse shooting and a damaged and expensive ecosystem, and no grouse shooting and a healthy ecosystem and lower household costs. Let’s put that one to the vote too. Rich person’s useless, pointless, unsporting sport, or lower bills for the masses? You choose – no, actually, we choose!
If the water utilities would get a grip of this issue, and if Defra would get off its backside and start delivering for the public good, and if the wildlife NGOs would realise that a victory was within their grasp, then this wouldn’t take long at all. As it is, the eventual, certain, and welcome outcome, a cessation of the damaging practice of driven grouse shooting is going to take a while to achieve. But momentum is building all the time. Every dead harrier, every failed campaign of spin by the shooters, every new study of ecosystem damage, every new complaint that puts the UK’s environmental credibility at risk, every damaging report by the Committee on Climate Change, every Hen Harrier Day rally brings the demise of driven grouse shooting closer.
When it’s gone, no one will ask for its return. When it’s gone we will be better off. When it’s gone we will regard its going as progress.
Today is the Inglorious 12th, 2016 – I’ll give it 9 more years.
Today is the Inglorious 12th and 85,000+ people are calling for an end to driven grouse shooting – please add your name to theirs.
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Even the night shift is against it — 500 sigs. in the last 8 hrs.
Agree 100% with everything you say Mark. The sooner we are rid of this obnoxious so called “sport” the better. Very great credit must go to you for all you are doing in this respect. Fantastic effort.
Yes, brilliant post Mark!
Thanks for the clear and concise arguments.
According to Will Adams in his lovely book Trainspotting Days, another name for trainspotter is ‘gricer’. It is thought to come those enthusiasts who used to roam the Cumbrian fells on the climb to Shap. Their only company were the grouse or rather, if you are from another class, grice.
203 in the last half hour! God Bless the early risers!
Packham vs Botham just been on Radio4 (8.25am). I’m sure it will be on the listen again faciliity soon.
Chris Packham 1 Ian Botham 0. Botham appeared out of his depth and at times seemed to be reading badly from notes.
It’s well worth a listen for the Botham gem – “gamekeepers look after the hen harriers” – we all know what he means by that! He also said that 800 pairs of lapwing were recorded during a BTO survey on one grouse moor – does anybody have details of this, because it seems very high?
Yes it is, at approx 08.20. Botham doing his usual mudslinging and trying to imply the RSPB is somehow at fault for the decline of the Hen Harrier whilst gamekeepers are supposedly protecting it!
CP played a pretty straight bat and saw off the new ball without too much trouble, I thought.
430 in the last hour!!!
Something teckkie is going on here that is way beyond my ken, but this is no longer just birders.
Past 87k now, where to tonight?
87,000 passed by 08.20 today & at yesterday’s rate 90,000 will be passed tonight and 100,000 reached by Monday (or earlier). Was it something you said, Mark? Seriously is the massive increase in signatures largely down to HH Day, strong support from Greens, that it’s the Inglorious 12th or the talent the other side have for some classic foot-in-mouth moments?
Mark, I’m sure you will sell lots of your new paperback at the Birdfair next week.
Sure you’ve thought of it but I hope you are planning to put a leaflet inside each cover.
Even WHEN we hit the 100k, it will be imperative not to take our foot off the gas. Every extra signature will put more pressure on MPs to attend the debate. Let’s get to 125k at least.
484 in last hour!
I need to go back to bed.
Brilliant summary Mark and 87,334 folk now agree with you.
Nick
8.40. 500!
Good article in The Canary
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/08/11/the-grouse-shooting-season-shows-the-elite-still-rules-the-roost/
Oh and it has a link.
650 in last hour at 9.14
Anand, thanks so much for that. Great article and rare to find some new facts that aren’t in ‘Inglorious’. Had no idea about Cameron upping the amount paid to grouse moors during his term or about the true cost of processing a gun licence.
All grist to the mill.
An awful lot of birds of prey can be wiped out in nine years. If certain organisations lived up to their responsibilities, it could happen somewhat sooner.
Hello Mark,
I’m a long-time reader of your blog, supporter, petition-signer, Inglorious-reader and leaflet-funder, but I’ve never felt drawn to add a comment before.
This morning though I really must voice my congratulations to Ian Botham for his incredible performance on Radio 4’s Today programme… and his success in generating even more signatures for your petition. Once we’d picked ourselves up off the floor at hearing him utter the words ” look after the hen harriers”, my partner and her son headed straight online to add their signatures. Two more for the total, so well done to him!
But seriously, well done to you, to Chris Packham, and to everyone else who supports and puts so much energy into the campaign.
Matt, love the post, can I put it on the BDGS Facebook page? If you’re OK with that I can attribute it or not, as you wish.
Mark, yes, go ahead and use it. Btw, I notice the word ‘gamekeepers’ has gone awol from the quote (probably a quirk of html as I put it in pointy brackets), so perhaps you could re-insert it.
Thank you.
Mark, superb as always.
I know you disagree with the term ‘industry’ – but I use it because to me the production of grouse seems ‘industrial’: it’s all about the scale; the compassionless drive to produce more and more and damn the consequences; the supporting infra-structure of butts, hard tracks laid across SPAs, water use, land damage…It seems to minimise the extensive damage to call it a ‘hobby’ (which it is of course), and it’s certainly not a sport. I don’t suppose it matters, and the sooner it’s disposed of the better, but I’d be interested to hear what your eloquent readership thinks.
Oh, 88700 sigs at 11:00 Fri morning – industry, hobby, archaic bloodsport – whatever this horrible thing is called, it’s on its way out…
Maybe he doesn’t like the term industry because he wants to ban the activity itself – ie shooting a grouse that is driven towards a gun – rather then banning an ‘industry’?
Grouse will still be shot and if the ‘industry’ can find a way of shooting grouse that doesn’t involve driving grouse towards guns then it can continue unabated.
I never particularly like the phrase ‘tourist industry’ but if that is an industry then anything can be.
Killing is bad but they are not all killed dont forget the injured which go on to suffer a slow death. Strange world a guy is successfully prosecuted for drowning a squirrel, because it has a stressful death but this “sport” can litter the countryside with hurting animals with shot in them, many of which will die. Its barbaric of us to allow it to continue just because it is out of sight.
To say that you cannot have driven grouse shooting without bop persecution is a nonsense.
You yourself have in the past praised a sustainably managed estate which practices driven grouse shooting.
It’s perfectly possible to drive grouse towards a gun – which at the end of the day is what driven grouse shooting is – without any moorland management – or predator persecution whatsoever.
All you need is a grouse – a gun and someone to drive the grouse towards the gun.
Giles – thank you for your comment.
a pleasure as ever Mark
Extraordinary day. I wake up – look at petition, smile, read Mark’s blog, smile broadly. So far fairly routine start to day. Next regular stop BBC news page to check world still turning – amazed to see grouse shooting and this campaign as a leading story. Check petition again – about 30 more signatures in 10 ins. Check Olympics medal tally – hurrah for cyclists, slightly surprised no mention of hen harriers (not really awake and the world has gone slightly squiffy). Go downstairs, make tea, turn on Radio 4 and there is Chris Packham talking about harriers – cheer. (And Sir Ian Botham being helpful).
There is something faintly glorious. Will we get more signatures than the shooters get grouse today? Will their bag cause more delight than ours? (I suspect not.) What is going on? What was the tipping point? And other interesting imponderables.
Small grouse among all the heady excitement but there’s a horrible error in Claire Marshall’s otherwise good piece where she described those campaigning against DGS as “Animal rights activists” – aaargh! Packers will be livid! He was at pains to point out at Rainham that this is precisely what those campaigning against DGS are not, indeed this is a smear tactic by the grouse lobby, (the correct term should be ‘conservationists’).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37049675
http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/news/hen-harrier-day-2016
Yes, I cringed at that bit. To be fair there’ll be an awful lot of “animal rights activists” among the 90,405 signatories but for the BBC to pigeon hole us all in such a way is sloppy and unhelpful.
Supposing driven grouse shooting was banned. What would be the subsequent land use? The same keepers employed in less intensive walk-over grouse shoots or the sheet-erosion scenario you can see when passing the Howgills on the M6 – sheep, short grass, bracken lower slopes but no heather. Unless the land is purchased by a conservation organisation (or the likes of United Utiliities purchase it), surely ‘the most economically productive alternative land use will come into play, including forestry?
Pete – if it’s designated land (i.e. SSSI, which presumably much of it is?), then it’ll have tightly defined nature conservation objectives, which whoever owns and manages the land is legally obliged to deliver, but don’t.
Without driven grouse shooting it’ll actually be possible to deliver these legally-defined conservation objectives. The constraint on favourable management is imposed by driven grouse shooting – remove driven grouse shooting, you remove this constraint and the areas can be better managed for nature conservation (and flood risk management, carbon sequestration, public access……)
If one attempted to plant such designated areas for forestry, you’d be hammered for in-your-face law breaking, the sort that’s hard to hide.
Imho one of your best pieces yet Mark on this whole darn business.
90,432, 782 in the last hour
Forget that 90,462 – forget the cricket puns, we’re going to need to hire Murray Walker as commentator at this rate…
I would like to see more conservation bodies buy moorland e.g National Trust; John Muir Trust; RSPB; Wildlife Trusts; Woodland Trust; Trees for Life and community land trusts etc. For instance the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has only a very small moorland reserve centred on a bog, most of their reserves are lowland woodlands, meadows or wetlands. Heather moorland seems to be a no-go area.
Then I would like to see some exploratory management to get a more natural habitat such as the National Trust seem to be doing with others in parts of the Peak District. There does need to be consideration for providing local jobs and income, be it from walkers, runners, wildlife-watching general tourism and less intensive grazing from traditional breeds of cattle etc. We must not replace grouse moors with a sheep-wrecked landscape or blanket conifers. Something like Trees for Life or Border Forest Trust land maybe. Then we can show that there is a viable, more environmentally friendly option out there.
But surely this land has value anyway as a water-catchment, carbon-storage, providing cleaner air and space for wildlife.
But Pete is right, someone should start planning what is an acceptable alternative – perhaps they already have?
Hope someone with more expertise has suggestions.
The so-called ‘sport’ needs to go along with the toffs who love it.
They’re both anachronisms.
There’s something fabulous about facts; they don’t need people to beleive in them for them to be facts, they just are, and don’t care for opinions.
If we stick to facts on this, we will win, and this Victorian hobby can be relegated to history.