Over the last few years we have been on a journey together. Those of us who are affronted by the scale and impacts of wildlife crime, and/or those who object to driven grouse shooting as an unsustainable leisure activity which is underpinned by wildlife crime, have used a range of techniques that are available to the people to influence government policy.
We have held rallies, attended marches, made banners, made and listened to speeches, written and read articles (and books) about the subject, petitioned parliament, delivered leaflets, given and attended talks over much of the UK, taken a six-foot Hen Harrier around to visit the grouse moors of the UK, funded satellite tags, held cultural events and now we have got together to mount a legal challenge to brood meddling. And yet they call us zealots!
A zealot is one who is ‘fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals’.
I’ve been called plenty of other names too – as have many others.
However, the truth of it is that I am very proud of the journey that we have made together over the last few years. From the ‘sodden 570’ on a rainy day in the Peak District to the ‘legal 962’ who have contributed their cash to fund a legal challenge, ‘we’ are using the democratic process to argue our case, to persuade more and more people of our arguments and ultimately, yes, we will win.
Last week was quite a week – it involved setting up the crowdfunder and launching it, signing some legal papers officially making me a client of our solicitors (Leigh Day), working with our solicitors on the pre-action protocol letter (which was sent to NE on Wednesday) and seeing the crowdfunder meet its stretch target only half way through Day 5.
Our solicitors are lawyers, and therefore not quite like normal people, but they are great. As the crowdfunder text says, they were captivated by this video of skydancing display and are highly motivated to use their legal skills to get justice for Hen Harriers (#justice4henharriers). And yes, we are paying them, but at very highly discounted rates and dependent on the success of the crowdfunder (so they are rather relieved about your response too).
And they constructed what appears to me, as a non-lawyer, to be a very strong argument on our behalf to which NE now must respond. It would be a bit of a surprise if NE replied saying ‘OK, we give in’ but it is possible. What is more likely is that they will send back a letter saying we have got it all wrong which will look very convincing to me but which won’t convince our lawyers one bit – but we’ll see. I’ll let you know what is happening as and when it happens, and as and when I can according to the legal advice I receive.
The pre-action protocol letter contains some wonderful phrases – there are some which when I read them I thought ‘Why haven’t I put it like that before?’. I won’t share the whole 14 pages of the letter but I just loved this phrase ‘…the proposed trial takes criminal activity as its starting point and looks to ease the path for those who are in breach of the domestic criminal law‘.
Yes – that’s what brood meddling is!
This isn’t a bad time to point out that we have led the way over these years. We have suggested that driven grouse shooting can’t be tinkered with, it should be swept away, we have petitioned parliament when we were told it was impossible to get 100,000 signatures, we started and maintained Hen Harrier Day, we have expanded tagging of raptors, we have raised the profile of the issue and we have led a legal challenge to brood meddling. And by ‘we’ I do mean ‘we’ – it’s obviously not me alone it’s me, you, Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and those at RPUK, Birders Against Wildlife Crime and a whole range of individuals (too many to mention, many of whose names you wouldn’t recognise, and many of whose names I don’t even know). But this is a good time to say thank you to all of you – whatever the future brings, however long it takes, we have come a long way together. Thank you.
We may hear this week, or we may not, whether or not the RSPB is going to take its own judicial review on brood meddling. I’ve kept the RSPB fully informed about our intentions and actions. I hope the RSPB does step up, and catch up, and announces that it is to take legal action too. If it does then there is the prospect of working together which would be what I have already suggested would be our preferred option. But we’ll see.
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I have recently involved myself , in a very small ,way in a cause I feel strongly about.Up to that point had no real idea of the time and commitment involved in pursuing an ideal , in trying to right a wrong in this country.It is one thing to tut tut from the sidelines but quite another to get off your arse and actually do something about it . Not just when its interesting and exciting but day in, day out, even when sometimes you would rather be doing something else.
You have always been very generous in your praise off others, and have always stressed that this is a joint venture. This might well be true but all too often it is the tenacious actions of an individual which is the galvanising factor especially when times get tough, and others loose heart or “cant be bothered” any more. It is the action of these individuals at this time which is crucial.
I really do take my hat off to you, to have the tenacity to keep coming back off the ropes when the whole murky might of the establishment is against you takes a lot of guts.
‘The proposed trial takes criminal activity as its starting point’
Wow, i have been trying to put it like that for years but mostly end up so gobsmacked it comes out in splutters.
The grousers are ‘normalising’ crime.
They even use that starting point as an excuse to launch it as ‘conflict resolution’.
Today’s Guardian newspaper contains letters commenting on George Monbiot’s recent piece on nature (lack of) in National Parks. Also available, Guardian online only, are letters from A Gilruth and Amanda Anderson on grouse moors and birds of prey. Both attempt to sound sensible and reasonable but are actually spinning their standard untruths, that the Defra plan will bring favourable conservation status to birds of prey and grouse alike, and grouse moors have little to do with raptor persecution anyway, it’s going down across the UK, don’t you know, just look at all those kites!
Amazing that we are called zealots because we want the law up held on grouse moors (and elsewhere) in respect to our wildlife and because we wish to ban a BLOOD sport that directly leads to wildlife crime on many grouse moors. Looking at this whole matter dispassionately it seems to me that those that claim we are zealots are in practice the zealots themselves.
However we must not get hung up on this term, zealot, (that is what they would like us to be) we must pursue the battle of banning driven grouse shooting until it is won, once and for all.
The basis on which NE and others have opted for the plan is because the alternative – shooters not illegally killing raptors or the police enforcing the law – is seen as too unlikely. That will remain the challenge if this goes ahead. But “It’s too hard to enforce the law” is not a good enough rationale.