Anthony is a 29 year old (at the time of writing) natural history enthusiast, birdwatcher, trainee ringer and graduate zoologist from North Wales. Anthony can be found on Twitter via @AnthonyJBritner
This guest blog is about another of those “anti-shooting petitions”. This time, it’s a petition to the Welsh assembly to “Introduce a Licence to manage land for game bird shooting in an attempt to end raptor persecution.” So as you can see, it’s not anti-shooting it’s an “anti-lack-of-accountability petition”. Although I very much doubt that certain people will see it that way.
I’ve submitted this as a guest blog on Mark’s blog as it’s the best way I can think of, of making people aware of it. Ok, so by making people aware of it I have to accept that involves some people who won’t like what this petition calls for, but some times you need to aim big to achieve anything at all.
Most petitions of this nature focus on banning or licensing driven grouse shooting as a result of the high number of both confirmed and suspected raptor persecution events occurring on these estates. But persecution events are not limited to driven grouse moors, it can occur pretty much at any site where there is intensive gamebird management, and with only one confirmed driven grouse moor in Wales, it would be a little unfair to create a petition which would target that single estate hence the rather broad focus of this petition.
The RSPB’s new Raptor persecution map hub, shows that between 2012 and 2016 there where 43 confirmed persecution incidents in Wales. Whilst we have to accept that not all persecution events will have been on, or have involved game bird shooting interests, we must not forget that these incidents may well be the tip of a blood-soaked iceberg.
I had wanted to start this petition following the news of the disappearance of Aalin. Here we had a satellite tagged hen harrier suddenly disappear from an area where she had been resident for in excess of 12 months before her disappearance since leaving her nest on the Isle of Man, and yet, within 6 months of a new shooting tenant taking over the grouse moor on which she had made her home she vanished. If that is not suspicious, I don’t know what is. However, I held off, maybe, just maybe she was still out there, maybe she was one of those exceptionally rare cases of tag failure. But then, recently, news broke that a second satellite tagged hen harrier had vanished in the same area, approximately 6 months later. The sudden loss of transmission from one bird is worrying, but does not necessary indicate anything untoward has taken place, but 2 birds on the same moor, that is cause for concern, in my opinion anyway.
Will this petition end raptor persecution in Wales? Of
course not, so the question you must be asking now is, then why bother? That’s simple, it’s the only way I could
think of expressing our frustration at the loss of such wildlife within Wales
to the Welsh government.
I know how you feel. Your petition is only seeking to ensure that those who break the law are brought to account. Mark will tell you how difficult it is to get a successful petition going. I have a current petition in the Scottish parliament which only has 274 signatures with only 8 days still left. Any breathing person from 5 to 125 from anywhere on planet earth can sign it, it seems to me. I’m clearly not very effective, but in Scotland I’m still likely to be able to submit to committees.
Your petition is in Wales, however. Lets me show you how the system might work in the whole of the UK.
Mark highlighted on 12th September a memorandum of understanding where ““Police forces will identify wildlife crimes… which .. should be referred to the CPS for a charging decision.”
RPUK 2 days ago highlighted a case where someone was cautioned rather than charged after an illegal “ladder trap” was discovered and video evidence obtained and given to the police. The offender was cautioned under the Animal Welfare Act and Game Act and a pheasant had been caught. The game Act 1831 would define a pheasant as game. The local paper said : “Gwyn Evans, Chargot Estate managing director, said: “I do not condone what the employee has done; he has been disciplined.“The employee in question is not a gamekeeper, he is a farm worker, and was acting in his own time without the knowledge of the estate.”
How could he have been cautioned and how is the Game Act 1831 even relevant? There is not much of the Act left. I can see 2 ways. The first is that under the Act S16
”All appointments of gamekeepers to be registered with the clerk of the peace.” Even if, and we can’t tell, he thought he was a gamekeeper he wasn’t, as pointed out by his employer, and he was committing an offence under the game Act if he was not appointed by a JP. I wonder if in the 21st Century all gamekeepers are so appointed?
The second possibility is that under S6, S7, S11 or S12 he may not have been authorised by his employer to take game, and hence an offence was committed.
Now these offences and the Animal welfare act are relatively minor, and the CPS could conceivably have told the police that a caution was sufficient under the circumstances.
But the newspaper also says that “However, the employee had set the trap without water or a perch for the decoy bird, a breach of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and none of the tapped birds were tended to or given water during visits.” Why was he not charged or cautioned under that Act, which is more serious? I have only one explanation for that. The CPS say he was not gamekeeper under the 1831 Act, and could not have been expected to know the requirements.
I leave it to the readers of this blog to come up with a better suggestion.
I’m content to suggest that it is possible that the CPS, despite what the police felt, used this double think to require that a caution was appropriate.
So, Anthony, please be aware that there are forces out there, even if you get legislation passed in Wales, and even if what the police believe is a “slam dunk” case against a person they believe is an offender, who may still prevent a useful prosecution.
I’ve signed your petition. I’m not from Wales. I admitted that and my signature was accepted. That shows that anyone from the uk at least can sign. I hope that is useful to others who may wish to sign.
Anthony, we have both signed your petition, will you now help us by attending Saturdays Walk for Wildlife…….and bring your friends.
I think I’ve met Anthony a number of times with the ringers, when they’ve been at Whixall Moss. I’m the bloke with the bicycle.
I entirely agree with the whole gist of the petition, and the sentiment in the blog. It is nothing to do with being anti-shooting, as that is just a stupid claim by those who apparently resent being asked to comply with the law.
I’ve argued for a long time that all managed shoots should be licensed. After all countless other activities have to be licensed and regulated. Ironically raptor works monitoring the nest of raptors are regulated legally, and licensed, but again ironically not those who are most prone to disturbing raptor nests, or even destroying them, quite illegally.
To me the most important aspect of licensing, should be that license conditions allow the inspection of managed shoots. It’s obvious that recorded incidents of raptor persecution are the tip of a very large iceberg, in other words most incidents, the vast majority of raptor persecution incidents, go undetected. This is primarily because they take place on private property in remote areas, with no witnesses. In other words as things stand there is very little probability that most raptor persecution would be detected or noticed, which is exactly how certain vested interests want it.
However, countless other activities and businesses can be inspected at short notice as either part of licensing, or legal requirements. A good example is that places that produce or serve food can be inspected by food inspectors without notice during business hours. It is a legal requirement of those businesses which produce and serve food. Countless other businesses and activities are subject to similar terms and conditions.
Therefore it’s not unreasonable for organized shoots to be subject to similar legal requirements of inspection. Especially given the evidence that illegal raptor persecution is widespread on managed shoots, and the major obstacle in monitoring the degree of illegal raptor persecution, is that those who monitor raptors can and are essentially barred from monitoring what is going on.
I’m not suggesting a free for all right of inspection, but that each area should have registered raptor monitors who have the right of access to managed shoots at short notice, especially with regard to breeding or territorial behaviour raptors. Meaning that any nesting raptors who’s nests suddenly disappear, along with the adults, could be noted.
Of course I’m well aware that shooting interests would be vehemently opposed to this? But the question is why? If they’ve got nothing to hide, and don’t illegally persecute raptors like they claim, then surely they’ve got nothing to fear? How is it anti-shooting? It’s only pro-conservation, and ensuring the law is complied with.
yes that’s correct you habe met me out with the ringers.
That’s now four petitions currently on the go that have relevance to driven grouse shooting – two directly and the other two under the umbrella of shooting birds generally. Anthony’s brilliant new petition, Alex’s excellent and well researched one to close the loopholes re wildlife crime and make sure the punishments for it are a real deterrent, the change.org one to ‘End Grouse Shooting on Yorkshire Water Moors’ and government petition 226109 for ‘An Independent Study to Find if Driven Grouse Shooting is of Economic Benefit’. Personally I like that, I really love the idea of simultaneous attack on different fronts (guess who loves watching old WWII films?) and if that is handled well they can really compliment each other. It would be great if the League Against Cruel Sports for instance put them together as a package and asked its supporters to sign all – really worth it for the combined effect. The Green Parties could do the same, the Hunt Sabs perhaps? It is bloody hard work getting signatures and it would be fantastic if those of us trying to do so got a bit more support – Mark has been exemplary in this regard, wish the League Against Cruel Sports were a bit more helpful this time round (LACS Scotland has, however, been great).
I’ve found that in spite of Labour MP Sue Hayman’s statement that we need a review of driven grouse shooting’s economic and ecological impacts constituency Labour parties in the north of England (none of which can be very far from a grouse moor) other than the kind words of a few individuals have been woeful in supporting a government petition for an economic study that really compliments Sue Hayman’s stance, especially frustrating in a ‘poor’ grouse shooting season which underlines how pathetic any dependence at all on whether or not grouse chicks do well is for supposedly modern economies. Labour are pretty crap on the conservation/environment front aren’t they Mark? Is being interested in wildlife seen as a middle class affectation? If that’s the thinking then there’s a streak of idiocy/arrogance in the Labour Party that’s not doing it any favours what so ever.
There isn’t much time left for Alex’s petition now (but you don’t need to get a lot of signatures with a Scottish Government petition to make a point), but still time to get them all out together as a package which would be a four punch hit to the status quo – we could end up with all of the petitions getting more signatures by being together, they’re complimentary after all. Well done Anthony!
I’ll be there. Have to be, I’ve bought the train tickets
If I understand correctly, for a petition to be accepted as admissible, and to be considered by the petitions committee, 50 signatures are required (there is no indication that these signatures have to be from residents within Wales) As it stands the petition has reached 66 signatures so the good news is, once the petition closes in December it should, as far as I can tell, be looked at in some detail.
If the petition gets 5000 signatures, it will be automatically considered for debate by all 60 assembly members. Again, there seems to be no indication that these signatures must be from within Wales.