Dr Therese Coffey is the junior minister at Defra. When Gavin Gamble’s e-petition in favour of banning driven grouse shooting passes 10,000 signatures then Dr Coffey will need to sign off a government response.
In order that she does not make Defra look even more foolish than they do already I am providing a reading list for the minister to inform her response.
This, the first item, is from the written evidence that was asked for, and totally ignored, in the debate on the same subject which was held about a year ago.
This is the summary of a very powerful piece of written evidence which was submitted anonymously:
- The shooting industry and its representatives should be removed from all positions of power where wildlife crime law enforcement policy are discussed or decided upon.
- Driven grouse moors should be rewilded. This at a stroke, would remove the many very serious problems of driven grouse moors and provide real, significant, tangible benefits for the whole of society.
- Driven grouse moor management normally involves very high levels of wildlife crime as well as a range of very serious conservation issues.
- The illegal persecution of birds of prey in the UK has a very serious detrimental effect, especially on hen harrier and golden eagle populations.
- Raptor persecution should be treated as organised crime.
- Detection of wildlife crime on grouse shooting estates is currently ineffective. Enforcement need to be far greater, with clear and strong backing from political leadership. A dedicated Wildlife Crime Enforcement team should be set up comprising perhaps 10 officers for Scotland. Employers and managers must be targeted for prosecution, not simply those actually undertaking the illegal killings
- Penalties for raptor killings should reflect the fact that these crimes are of a commercial nature. Custodial sentences should be made routine for employers, managers and employees. Financial penalties should be linked to the value of the business.
- The industry has consistently shown no will to reform itself, despite much help to that end for many years.
- There is practically no accountably to ensure that those managing driven grouse shooting estates adhere to lawful and decent environmental practise.
- It is clear that driven grouse shooting should be banned. However, in the absence of such a ban, it is essential that vicarious liability and shoot registration are urgently required.
- Society is failing to get any benefit from the huge subsidies given to driven grouse shooting estates, indeed these monies are funding very serious environmental degradation.
And here are some quotes from it too:
- It is essential to understand that raptor persecution is committed on remote land that is normally free from potential witnesses and by individuals with an intimate knowledge of the land, often operating at night with high tech, essentially military, equipment. The risk to them of detection is extremely low. Around 100 confirmed incidents of raptor persecution are recorded each year. It is not known what percentage of actual incidents this number accounts for, but I believe it will certainly be far, far less than 1%. The RSPB has received multiple reports of in excess of 100 raptors being killed on individual shooting estates in one year. Apart from the extremely low detection rate, of the confirmed incidents, the subsequent successful prosecution rate is less than 5%. As such, the chances of an individual gamekeeper killing a raptor and actually being prosecuted for it are extremely low. For every successful gamekeeper prosecution, I estimate that there will have been, very roughly, far, far more than 2000 other offences. Having been convicted, it is likely that the employer will pay any fine, meaning that there is effectively no consequence for a gamekeeper illegally killing raptors or other legally protected wildlife. [Only one gamekeeper ever, has received a custodial sentence for raptor killing in Scotland. This is probably the one and only time ever, that a significant deterrent was handed down, and the only occasion where managers or owners were unable to protect their employees from the law.] When gamekeepers are prosecuted in court, they are normally unusually well represented in court, often by QC’s, even for minor offences, by specialist defence firms. Having been convicted of wildlife crimes, gamekeepers invariably retain their employment. This arrangement allows managers and employers to remain very distant from the criminal actions of their staff. If a gamekeeper was ever to give evidence against his employer or manager, he would have practically no chance of working as a gamekeeper ever again. Gamekeepers coming forward publicly with information about raptor persecution would effectively make themselves unemployable.
- Whilst it is invariably gamekeepers committing the offences on grouse shooting estates, they are not the primary problem. It is the shooting industry, the managers and employers of gamekeepers, who are the real problem and who create the environment for gamekeepers to operate in and who direct the widespread criminal practices taking place. The desire to produce incredibly high, unnatural numbers of grouse for driven grouse shooting is the motivation for widespread illegal predator killing. For many years, there has been numerous partnership working projects between conservationists and the shooting industry to find ways to enable this hobby to continue legally, but despite much help, there has never been any serious engagement from the shooting industry and the illegal killings continue. If the driven grouse shooting industry was serious about tackling problems like raptor persecution it could easily do so very quickly. It is essential to fully comprehend that this will never happen without serious and meaningful governmental action.
- I have absolutely no doubt that any voluntary approach or code of conduct will never be effective. It is clear a robust and enforceable legal framework, backed up with the resources for rigorous enforcement, is needed to ensure the environment is properly protected.
- It appears that sometimes employers/managers may be aware that their gamekeepers are illegally killing raptors, but ignore it. On others estates, it appears that gamekeepers are given explicit instructions to illegally kill raptors and are given specialist equipment to that end. Some estates spend vast sums of money supplying specialist equipment, firearms, night-sights, thermal imaging sights, illegal poisons, to enable their gamekeepers to commit crimes and avoid detection.
Please sign this e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and to put Dr Coffey on the spot.
The government response should:
- be published within 2 weeks of Gavin Gamble’s e-petition reaching 10,000 signatures
- announce that vicarious liability for wildlife crimes will be introduced in England because of the unacceptably high levels of wildlife crime
- announce that Defra will ask the RSPB to come forward with proposals for licensing of shooting estates within a month and that Defra will respond to them by Christmas
- acknowledge the level of concern about driven grouse shooting which led to 123,077 signatures being gained last year for an absolute ban on this hobby (I’m not expecting Dr Coffey to say anything nicer than that about a ban)
- confirm that Defra is looking at removal of farming subsidies from grouse moors in its post-Brexit agricultural strategy
- confirm that the evidence for wider environmental damage of heather burning has increased recently and that this is an issue that government will address and that this will require widespread changes to grouse moor management (burning and draining)
- mention where the government is with dealing with the RSPB complaint to the EU over unsustainable moorland management due to grouse shooting practices
- acknowledge that the plight of the Hen Harrier has not improved in two breeding seasons since the Defra Hen Harrier plan was launched and that the grouse shooting industry has not cleaned up its act and is on a last warning
- announce that the details of the 15-year Natural England Hen Harrier study will be published by Christmas 2017 in a government report with further recommendations for Hen Harrier conservation
- acknowledge that wildlife crime applies to many other protected species other than the Hen Harrier
- announce that the National Capital Committee has been asked to compile a report on ecosystem services and grouse moor management
- announce a review of the economic costs and benefits of intensive grouse moor management will be carried out by independent academics and published by Christmas 2018.
The government response should not:
- say that funding of the NWCU is a sufficient response to combatting bird of prey persecution in the uplands (because nobody who knows has ever suggested such a thing)
- say or suggest that grouse shooting provides a nett economic benefit to the nation (because there are no such figures)
- suggest that the current Hen Harrier Action Plan is remotely fit for purpose
- praise gamekeepers
- conflate benefits of all shooting (economic or environmental) with benefits of grouse shooting (because it makes the government department and/or its ministers look either stupid or biased)
On the other hand, she may simply point out that moorland with no grouse shooting (50% of it in England) – has yet to deliver higher overall; environmental, economic and social outcomes.
Andrew – you obviously think you have Dr Coffey in your pocket at GWCT – that’s very worrying for the rest of us, and won’t do her party’s electability any good, I suggest. You aren’t going to rely on the Bluffer’s Guide to Moorland Imbalance as your evidence are you?
Let’s just start with – On what do you base that very dodgy economic claim?
No doubt citing, amongst other things, the British Trust for Ornithology report on a 10 year long monitoring programme set up to examine the effectiveness of moorland management in south-west Scotland:
‘The expectation that the breeding bird community would increase in response to the management prescriptions adopted was not fulfilled. Only two species increased relative to the general trend for moorland and one of them was Carrion Crow (a species that was being actively removed as part of predation control measures). Most bird species studied showed no change or actually declined.
Although the responses by vegetation to changes in grazing were quite small, the moorland habitat condition did appear to have stabilized and further degradation had been halted. More relevant, however, was that declines in bird populations were common across species with different habitat associations and so a causal relationship with the land management changes appeared unlikely. Similarly, an effect of disturbance seemed unlikely. It did, however, remain plausible that the failure to effectively control predators could have contributed to the failure to increase breeding bird populations.’
‘It raises the question of whether moorland bird conservation can be effective where breeding birds remain vulnerable to predation, and in so doing will contribute towards the wider debate on the future of the British uplands.’
https://www.bto.org/national-offices/scotland/moorland-management-birds-predator-control-essential
Tim – you said that before.
Surely the authors of the Bluffer’s Guide will refer to improved water quality, flood alleviation, carbon sequestration, etc. as well as curlews (nothing wrong with curlews) and the fine talk about brood meddling, whilst ignoring illegal raptor persecution?
People can argue the toss all day long about the evidence regarding the economic and environmental impacts of different forms of management for heather moorland. What is unequivocal is that driven grouse shooting goes hand in hand with the illegal and wanton destruction of protected wildlife.
So long as they shoot grouse, grouse moor owners will sanction continued law breaking to wipe out birds of prey. That alone is reason enough for a ban.
A representative variety of moorlands, in the 50% unshot category, should be “rewilded” for want of a better term, as soon as is practical.
Mark Osborne himself, has stated that in future ,some of the more marginal grouse moors may have to be abandoned, as regards active management, so that’s a few more to pick from.
Without the income from grouse, these properties may be easier to acquire, or their owners more amenable to experimentation. Some of them are no doubt in sympathetic hands already.
Maybe, the much hoped for revision of agricultural payments, could help bring this about.
Large scale comparisons would then be available, and judgements could then be made on the claims from both sides in this argument, Andrew Gilruth , or the anonymous respondent.
“Rewilding” of the uplands, on the scale, and of the type that many envisage, will be very expensive,
certainly initially, and for many years afterwards.
However, so is the current system, and in the future maybe a better range of benefits will be apparent for the taxpayers hard earned cash.
We just need some idea what we are getting ourselves into.