Gems from the written evidence 10 – Nick Brown

Mark 3 Comments

More written evidence from the Peak District – this time extracts  from Nick Brown’s evidence:

  • We had visitors from Holland and France here recently and they wanted to see the National Park’s moorlands and especially its wildlife. I had to tell them that while they would see plenty of heather and some grouse,  they would see hardly any other wildlife and certainly few birds of prey in the Park, just a few kestrels and buzzards but no hen harriers, peregrines, goshawks, red kites or even any short eared owls. They were astonished and I was embarrassed to have to tell them why.
  • Given the utter intransigence of the grouse shooting industry, evidenced by the fact that so few hen harriers now even attempt to nest in England in particular, the only way to restore and revitalise the England National Parks where grouse shooting exists, and the vast tracts of moors outside the Parks, is to ban the activity of driven grouse shooting.
  • This would result short term in a small amount of unemployment, e.g. of game keepers though most could be retained to help with the work to restore the moors and even help to provide the facilities required for a thriving eco-tourism industry to replace grouse shooting.

 

You could write to your MP about the debate on driven grouse shooting today (see here).

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3 Replies to “Gems from the written evidence 10 – Nick Brown”

  1. I have a vivid memory of a German colleague of mine in Sheffield stating that there was no wildlife on the peak district moors except for Meadow Pipits. It’s not great, is it.

  2. I am not at all in favour of re-employing gamekeepers as anything to do with wildlife – in my experience their knowledge of wildlife is limited to knowing how to kill. To compare them to wildlife rangers or reserve wardens, who should be working in our Uplands, is an insult…That’s not sour grapes its cold hard fact.We are a long way still from achieving anything like the potential biodiversity possible in these places – but that’s not the way to go about it.

  3. Thomas; fair comment….though I guess if certainly the younger ones weren’t retrained they would just go elsewhere and continue with their killing ways…
    I do agree though that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.
    Nick

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