I’m grateful to Andy Beer of the National Trust for his response on this blog this morning.
NT, in deciding, rather unnecessarily in my view, to seek ‘partners who can demonstrate how moorland management and shooting can deliver great nature conservation in a way that is compatible with public access’ open up some interesting questions to which I will return over the coming days and weeks.
Here’s an initial question; can you please publish (I’d happily do it here for you) the days on which grouse shooting is happening on NT land in the Peak District National Park on public access land between 12 August 2017 and 9 December 2017 as I’d like to go and watch this traditional nature-conservation-friendly activity on the land that I, as an NT member, help you to buy, manage and look after?
Since the NT is so keen on grouse shooting, perhaps NT should consider having open days when shooting is happening so that more fellow members can watch and learn.
Would you be happy for a film crew to be present when grouse shooting is happening on your, I mean our, land?
I assume there would be no problem in the public being present on these days otherwise you can clearly see that there is already evidence that grouse shooting is not compatible with public access.
[registration_form]
Huge areas of private moorland are already managed for intensive game shooting.
We don’t need to give cash to the National Trust so it can provide yet more land for game shooting ‘on the cheap’.
If you want to support wildlife conservation, I suggest you donate to, say, your local Wildlife Trust, or Butterfly Conservation, Buglife, Freshwater Habitats Trust, the RSPB – all managing life for people and wildlife, rather than to provide yet more land for game shooters.
Sadly there might be a case for walked-up shooting being even less public-friendly than driven shoots, in that on a driven shoot there are so many beaters and others tramping over the ground that it would be difficult for an innocent walker, fell runner or birdwatcher to find themselves in the wrong place and on the receiving end of a blast of buckshot. From what I can gather, walked-up shooting is much more casual and I would imagine in theory at least presents a greater danger to other users of the land?
There is of course a complete solution…
The onus is then on the shooter to not shoot another moor user. If they have such poor shooting discipline as to manage to shoot another person then they can have their shotgun license yanked, and even face gaol time. The onus is always, even on driven shoots (although that one is observed more in the breach than in practice given how much spirits and fortified wine is consumed on those shoots, one law for them-again), on the person with the gun to ensure they have clearly identified their target and that no other individual is going to be affected. Walked up shooting should see smaller and less powerful guns, with shorter ranges, used in this instance.
Middle stump.
In terms of activities NT should be prioritising an enhanced walking experience over shooting. Visit Scotland has just produced research showing that walkers generated £1.25 billion for the Scottish economy. That, pro rata, along with the health and wellbeing benefits and a more diverse upland environment would represent far greater public benefit from NT land than shooting. It’s astonishing that a mass membership organisation in a crowded country thinks it has some kind of duty to maintain a minority activity which is already vastly over represented in the relatively limited area of English upland.
Neither should it be any part of NT’s business to demonstrate how conservation and shooting can co-exist when no private grouse moor is willing to take up that challenge for the obvious reason that they do not want coexistence.
Unfortunately the restrictions that National Trust seek/claim to be imposing on any prospective shooting tenant in demanding compliance with their ‘High Peak Vision’ might not be as discouraging to an uptake of tenancy and a continuation of raptor persecution in the area as we might hope for. A shooting tenant could remain within the law (while still pursuing activities that so many find distasteful) and simply let their neighbours on privately owned adjacent moorland deal with the ‘problem’ of breeding Hen Harriers by killing the males when they hunt in the surrounding area, or Goshawks by sending in gangs at night to destroy nests and kill adult and young birds in surrounding Severn Trent or Forestry Commission owned land. National Trust are certainly aware of this possibility (/inevitability) as this is what happened on their land very nearby (Howden Moor) in 2006 when 2 breeding male Hen Harriers ‘disappeared’, though in this case their shooting tenant’s gamekeeper was subsequently convicted of raptor persecution offences anyway;
https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/derbyshire-gamekeeper-guilty-of-using-illegal-trap/