Nick Miles, actor, says:
‘I want driven grouse shooting to be banned because I see its impacts in the area where I live. This picture was taken a short walk from where I live in Wensleydale, surrounded by grouse moors, within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. I can, and do, walk for hours, days, weeks, without seeing a single raptor and it depresses the hell out of me. Earlier this year I found the Heron that used to patrol my local bit of the River Ure lying dead next to poisoned bait. The criminal slaughter of wildlife to support the hobby of a few rich people is a national disgrace and needs to be tackled with the utmost urgency.‘
To join Nick Miles, please sign Gavin Gamble’s e-petition which calls for a ban on driven grouse shooting.
[registration_form]
Certainly looks like a highly depressing area to live in Nick with regards to anyone interested in moorland biodiversity. Unfortunately England suffers from several of these persecution hotspot areas including the one you have already pointed out, Peak District and Forest of Bowland. Please correct me if I’ve left any others out? I’d suggest that you travel North and perhaps visit the Angus Glens were you will witness a wealth of raptors, waders, ring ouzel, etc associated with heather moorland and all this is found on a managed grouse moor.
That is so tragic Nick and indicative of the barren wasteland this archaic pastime of the few leaves behind during what should be a productive season for moorland raptors and other species of wildlife.
Not only do these greedy landowners and selfish shooters feel the need to butcher and slaughter the raptors and wildlife, but they do the same to the moorland itself.
Sod everyone else, so long as they get their kicks eh?
#BanDGS
If there was ever an excuse for recreational killing it has gone. The world is too small and crowded and wild life populations too fragile for this destructive ‘recreation’. Wildlife and it’s raptors are a resource for the enjoyment of all UK residents. Driven grouse shooting is old fashioned and a disgusting and fatuous way to treat our common, precious resource.
Disgusting and unacceptable
Walked in the Bowland Fells yesterday. It’s a wildlife desert.
ENVIRONMENTAL & NATIVE WILDLIFE ABUSES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!
The killing of our precious wildlife must be stopped, as very soon we will have nothing left. Killing for “fun” is disgusting and is totally uncivilised.
Kindly any animal for sport is unacceptable.
the more this government buries its head in the sand and blantantly ignores the fact that our wildlife is getting massacred with these hunting and shooting activities, the more their credibility sinks.
Greedy reckless Human’s…need I say more
Sickening and outdated ‘hobby’, high time it was outlawed.
Greedy, thoughtless, reckless human beings….need I say more
This is cruel and unnecessary
All blood sports need to be stopped for good.
Grouse Shooting Economics
In England grouse moor management creates 42,500 work days a year and is responsible for over 1,500 full-time posts. Of these, 700 are directly involved in grouse moor management, with a further 820 jobs in related services and industries.
Keeper staff are employed all year round, irrespective of the season, and additional workers brought in on a casual basis, up to 50 people a day on the bigger moors.
Research has shown that associated spin-offs from grouse shooting in the North of England are worth in excess of £15 million a year, benefitting a raft of rural businesses. These include game dealers, the hospitality industry, equipment suppliers and transport operators, many of them based in some of the most remote areas.
Each year, owners and sporting tenants of our 175 member grouse moors in England and Wales spend a combined total of £52.5 million on land management, 90 percent of which is privately invested.
The majority of this outlay benefits some of the most rural communities in our uplands.
http://www.moorlandassociation.org/grouse-shooting-economics/
don – thank you for your comment which is h=just a quote from the grouse moor oweners’ trade association – so they would say that wouldn’t they. The figures have been ttrashed by economists and you’ll notive that there is no estimate of the cost to the public of increased flood risk, increased water treatement cost, increased carbon emissions, lowered aquatic biodiversity, loss of income from green tourism and or my loss at not being able to see a Hen Harrier nesting in England in many years.
Don, considering the amount of land taken upon by DGS I have to say those figures look pretty pathetic to me. The uplands wouldn’t disappear because DGS did, in fact a lot could reappear or be brought back, a more natural, wildlife rich mosaic of real habitats that would also bring in more tourism and other activities such as working conservation holidays, I’ve participated in two of these myself in the Forest of Bowland after the grouse shooting season ended I would add. Only a tiny, tiny minority of people can take part in big bag DGS even if they could afford it and wanted to do it. It’s not a spectator sport and nobody watches it on the telly the way they look at the big golf tournaments and formula one. Economic diversification is as important as biological diversity for healthy systems, in this case rural communities that should have a widening range of business activities to provide them with employment. Look at what happened to communities that were reliant on the local coal mines, ship yards or steelworks – we’ve had quite a few of them in Scotland. The same has happened with DGS in rural areas, except that it hardly enriched them in the first place and is keeping away better options that could be helping people right here, right now. DGS is a dead end that unfortunately is taking people as well as wildlife with it, and to add insult to injury there are bystanders actually cheering it on.
Fair comment as far as it goes Don Kennedy, and by the same the token economics of the arms industry would look immeasurably more rosy. The challenge is identifying and valuing the costs imposed by the industry – and of alternative uses – presently and in the future, including on local ecosystems, the services they provide, and the knock-on impacts to communities. This is not such an easy task.