Chris Packham should be on Good Morning Britain talking about Wild Justice at 06:50 this morning. He tells me he apologises for sniffling – he’s got a bug.
And the Wild Justice website is temporarily down too – it has a few glitches and needs a bit of technical fiddling. Maybe it caught something from Chris? We are told that it will be back up and running later today – let’s hope it’s soon because it was very popular yesterday.
But in any case, our solicitors at Leigh Day sent a Pre Action Protocol letter to a public body yesterday. This is the first stage in seeking leave for a judicial review of a public body’s decision. The other side has 14 days to respond and then Chris, Ruth and I, advised by our legal team, will have to decide whether to go for it. If we do then we’ll be fundraising for that case, if we don’t then we’ll move on to the next project on our list. Yes, we have a list!
Thanks for everyone’s support yesterday – it was quite a day. Today might be a little quieter.
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Can I see a T shirt coming? If so I want one.
John – maybe, but maybe not. It’s a thought but gets us potentially into more VAT issues etc. If you want 500 then maybe we will!
You already have a list. Great to hear it. I wonder which public bodies are wondering if
they are on your ‘little list?’
I’m sure that you 3 individuals will make a huge difference to many public bodies who, up to now, could quite happily ‘do their masters’ bidding’ with no need to look over their collective shoulder.
And if you succeed, and I’m sure that you will, “they’ll none of ’em be missed.”
Alex – let’s not over-claim. The Establishment is accustomed to challenges and it is still there. But we can make a difference, I’m sure of that.
It seems that celebrity is more influential than ever, so I applaud the inititaive, but I am sure they will be supported by the rank and file who oppose the greed and selfishness of the hunting community.
Brilliant initiative
Findlay – hi! thanks. Hope to see you soon, and maybe some harriers too.
Great to see this getting off the ground. With the responses and actions taken to your individual JR’s it’s clear this kind of stance needs to be taken.
I’m sure you find the technical glitches on the website irritating, but no doubt they will be sorted out very quickly, then I can sign up to the newsletter! I’ll come back to it later.
Good luck to the three of you with this.
Well done for setting this up. Hopefully it will be a waste of time (if you see what I mean?) but I very much doubt it.
Sadly it speaks volumes that a few individuals with an interest in field-sports, have had a go at your motives and indulged in yet more personal attacks, rather than welcoming a group who aim to challenge threats made to our natural heritage by increasingly bizarre decisions made by our public bodies.
Martin – yes it is odd that before we do anything, our motives are challenged (and challenged is a nice way of putting it). It’s almost as if they are afraid of the law being used to clean up their industry, a so-called sport, isn’t it?
I haven’t been able to find the ‘anti’ comments yet, but imagine I could write them without seeing them – being hated in this case is definitely a positive, shows they’re worried and so they should be.
But searching around I came across the Countryside Alliance on BBC bias – objecting to counter arguments being allowed over the launch of a game meat initiative (did someone mention lead ?. Balance, of course, is everything and to more than balance things out it is worth remembering that the poor old BBC has also been taken to task for going too far in allowing counter-arguments to climate change – on the grounds that the science is now so conclusive that airing the diminishing and fact free lobby against it goes beyond balance. I’d suggest the science on the poisonous of lead is even more conclusive.
I just googled “Wild Justice” and quickly found this item…
https://www.fieldsportschannel.tv/packham-aims-wild-justice-at-hunters-and-shooters/
They seem a little miffed at Chris taking this course “instead of joining the fieldsports community at the forefront of the fight against wildlife crime,…”
Bizarrely it also states “At the launch of Wild Justice on BBC’s Farming Today radio programme, Packham said he counts everyone in the fieldsports community as a wildlife criminal.” It then posts the full audio clip from the programme, which I’ve listened to twice now, and Chris states no such thing. (I don’t imagine libel cases were high on the target list when forming Wild Justice, but perhaps Chris might like to request a retraction and apology from them?)
Yeah pretty much standard for the FSC. A while back Chris P did a self funded documentary making trip to Malta to film illegal hunting and raise questions about the spring hunt etc (realize I’m probably teaching my granny to suck eggs here). Scrupulously fair and decent he also spoke to hunters and government officials as well as volunteers rescuing injured birds, staff from Birdlife Malta etc so that everyone’s point of view was included. And what thanks did he get for it? FSC did their own ‘fact finding’ trip to Malta which was entitled ‘A Packham of Porky Pies!’ yeah objective journalism at its very best. If you haven’t seen it already and want to watch it best to have a puke bucket nearby, the ‘poor’ hunters do their very best to sound like sweet, lovely folk who are being comprehensively misunderstood and victimized. Of course Chris came in for a fair amount of derision and insult, even at one stage the very lame accusation he was indulging in a form of ‘neo colonialism’. Predictably they never went to Chris or in fact anybody campaigning against the hunting on Malta for their comments or views. The Pace brothers who do the horrendous ‘Untold Story of…’ videos for the Angus Glens grouse moors have also got it in for CP, they claimed he’d said we should forget about trying to save the red squirrel when actually he’d said there were places where trying to save it was doomed and were eating up scarce conservation funds – quite the opposite in fact of what they’d claimed. By god that man’s a hate figure and target for them!! Go on Chris!!!
For “anti” comments, have a gander at CPs announcement on his facebook page. The usual bare-faced liars have a pop with their pathetic, libellous tripe.
Interesting re. BBC Roderick. Did you hear the Radio 4 (‘loophole’) hunting programmes – fox and deer (Exmoor). Amazingly good (and difficult) journalism about how hunts are getting around the law in England – arguing ‘research’ or chasing wildlife around ‘for its own good’ or pretending to be training for falconry etc. Imagine BBC get a lot of pressure from hunting lobbies over that so good on them for airing (and the individual reporter – can’t remember name).
Perhaps the greatest ‘crime’ (on birds) is the drenching of farmland with harmful chemicals. Except that it’s perfectly legal. Will this abuse be on the agenda of Wild Justice? Or is too late for meaningful action?
I think that a significant effect that Wild Justice may well have overall, is that many of our stupid politicians and decision makers may at long last start to realise that there is a very large number of people making up aignificant proportion of the electorate that won’t tolerate decisions being made in favour of vested interests and contrary to the welfare and degradation of our wildlife.Lets hope this proves to be the case