There have been 20,500+ petitions submitted during this parliament.
13,700 of them were rejected – we weren’t.
Of the 6,800 or so not rejected – only 293 have passed the 10,000 signature barrier (we’ve done that twice – in this parliament).
Of the 6,800 or so not rejected, only 47 have reached 100,000 signatures – we’ve done that today.
Of the 47 to reach 100,000 signatures – 37 have been or will be debated in parliament. We expect to be added to that list, fingers crossed.
Please do keep promoting the e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting – more signatures would be very welcome and there are about five weeks to go.
According to the information on the petitions web page it would be very difficult to see grounds for not debating our rather super and successful e-petition.
When will the debate take place? No idea – but there is a queue and parliament is in recess so I wouldn’t expect very rapid progress.
Have we given this any thought at all – some, but we need to do more because we’ve all been a bit overwhelmed by the speed of recent events. Keep your suggestions coming – some we have thought of, others we hadn’t but if they are good ideas we’ll certainly use them.
We approached two of the organisations most directly involved, LACS and RSPB, a couple of days ago (which seemed a little presumptuous at the time – but things have moved quickly) and we’ve had a very positive response from LACS and this blog looks like the makings of a positive response from RSPB but we’ll wait and see.
PS I’m not sure anyone actually got a screen shot of 100,000 signatures – the above is one of several photo-shopped images I received. It was a blur!
PPS Am rather over-whelmed by messages of congratulation coming in by text, email, Facebook message, Twitter DM, phone calls, comments on this blog and occasionally face to face. Will try to get round to answering all of them over the next few days. But thank you all for now.
[registration_form]
Signed.
Btw – here is a link to an image of this week’s article in ‘The Lady’ by Robin Page.
Daily Mail ecology at its best…
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7NoxLFAeQxeRVRiNmtYX0pRakk
Have fun shredding this if you like 🙂
Mark
Conservation Officer, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7NoxLFAeQxeRVRiNmtYX0pRakk
What an old fashioned way of looking at red grouse management.
Not a mention of scarce species of raptors, or the damaging to the environment associated with the hobby.
It would seem that Robin Page hasn’t read Inglorious, or kept up with the latest blogs from Mark Avery.
It’s obvious that many species of upland birds, those that don’t have a detrimental effect on Red Grouse numbers, will do well on heavily predator-controlled land, but that’s just one of few advantages of a managed grouse moor.
That curlews, golden plovers and lapwings appear to do better on grouse-managed land should not give grouse shooting a ticket to carry on in the present manner.
Foxes, weasels and stoats all have their place in the natural order of things; they didn’t evolve to end up in a keeper’s snare or trap.
The bigger picture needs to be addressed Mr Page.
This appears to be gone under the radar:
http://m.cambridge-news.co.uk/robin-page-sacked-by-the-telegraph-as-he-says-country-people-are-britain-s-most-endangered-minority/story-29591985-detail/story.html
Apparently this is the 3rd occasion that Robin Page has been sacked by the Telegraph.
Ernest – only the third? Too few, too few.
It says a lot about your integrity, Mark, that you confess that the image used was photo-shopped – most wouldn’t bother and would let it pass. It seems somehow emblematic of the whole campaign. Although I’m generally loathe to make sweeping stereotypical statements, it seems to me that ‘integrity’ is often something that is absent from the pro-driven grouse shooting camp. They quote imaginary BTO surveys, are deceptively selective in their use of ‘facts’, indulge in verbal gymnastics to avoid admitting what is plain to see, readily point the finger at “bird botherers”/RSPB when the blame is clearly elsewhere and excuse systemic criminality as a ‘few rotten apples’.
We need to draw their ‘imaginative’ science to the attention of those who take it at face value, even if that media ignore it we have social media options which they do not like because they can’t control them?
If they keep up this fantastic stupidity then we will win the day sooner than anticipated.
Whilst we all recognise that parliament is likely to want to ignore the call for the Hen harrier issue to be properly debated, along with the associated issues of upland moor management and the public funds subsidising it, we must persuade our MPs that a full investigation and call for evidence, expert witnesses called and available for cross examination thereby exposing the whole sordid saga to full public view.
Just imagine ‘Sir’ being cross examined by Chris, fair dues ‘Sir’ would be allowed reciprocal courtesy, I know where my money would be and I don’t gamble with brass!
Andreson, Gilruth, Merricks et. al. would all receive an invite and we’d all be extremely courteous to them because they are self proclaimed ‘experts’ we are only ‘phlebs’ but have robust science and we’re all keen to see their independently peer reviewed evidence for sure?
AA inferred ‘they’ had restored thousands of acres of moorland …. bring it on;)
Filled with awe and a real desire to scream my head off with delight. Well done all of you who have struggled and fought so hard for this. n T Especially to Mark for the determination to do this and to Chris for having the guts to stand up and be counted by the ‘sc…m’ on TV yesterday.
Many congratulations to you and Chris Packham – a huge amount of effort has gone into driving his petition forward and getting the public involved and interested in the sad plight of raptors in particular. Hopefully the owners of moorlands and estates will make changes for the better and consider wildlife before profit.
I think you both deserve a beer ( or two, Hen Harrier of course!)
Thank You
Congratulations. They have never been so publicly and effectively called to answer for their activities, for their lies, their disinformation and their ignorance. If that can be pressed home through a parliamentary debate governments may find it much harder to go on treating them as a respectable part of the solution.
Mark, Amazing. I have been out all day so it was a pleasant surprise to see the numbers not just at 100,000 but over 103,000 when I got home. Congratulations to all involved in this.
You are absolutely right that there is further (probably much harder) work to do. Parliament only has to consider a debate and if that happens it needs to be approached with a unified voice. Some are in favour of licensing, others will be behind banning driven shooting while others will want all grouse shooting banned. Somehow those divergent ideas have to be brought together in a positive way.
Don’t let the success of the petition blind anyone to the need for a great deal of background work. I am sure you will make certain that happens but the rest of us may not see this going on behind the scenes.
Mark, very sincere and warm congratulations on this achievement. Others have helped enormously I know, but this is truly your moment in the spotlight. Enjoy.
Apologies for being late to the party but we have just got back from making new friends in Hebden Bridge. Very long day at their ‘Ban the Burn walk’. Bit to tell, maybe later.
We heard at 10.15am of the 100k, now it’s 104,000.
Let’s all keep up the work and attain at least 125,000. Both Mark and Chris deserve it.
Many, many congratulations Mark, Chris and everyone involved! SO delighted – 104,106 voices are not going to go away until our uplands are freed of this destructive, cruel and antiquated activity. Thank you for all your hard work in achieving this amazing success – gold medals all round! The first struggle now will be to ensure that a Parliamentary debate actually does take place – the current regime shows scant regard for democracy and will try hard to please its friends in tweed by wriggling out of this. Let’s watch and see – it will be a good test of their supposed desire to respect the will of the people.
And today’s adjective is: momentous!
The day ended on: 104,399
Today’s signatures: 6504
Peak signing rate: any suggestions? Over 500/hour.
Last week
6th – 1924
7th – 2598
8th – 1958
9th – 2040
10th – 1535
11th – 3891
12th – 11,689
Total for week = 25,635
Daily average = 3662
Petition total = 97,895
Constituency average = 150.6
This week
13th = 6504
Constituency average = 160.6
And a correction for yesterday; screenshot tweeted of the signing rate peaking at 1127!
Surprisingly good coverage in the Torygraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/13/mps-to-debate-grouse-shooting-ban-as-more-than-100000-sign-petit/