Yorkshire Water is facing a formal investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over its refusal to disclose the number of red grouse shot on its land.
The investigation has been prompted by an official complaint lodged with the ICO by Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors and the League Against Cruel Sports, after Yorkshire Water failed to comply with an environmental information request seeking the data.
Eleven moors across the county are leased out by the utility business for grouse shooting, with permits issued allowing shooting parties to meet on water catchments to kill game birds for entertainment.
Luke Steele, Spokesperson for Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors, said:
“If Yorkshire Water is comfortable with leasing land for grouse shooting then it should be transparent about how many birds are being shot for entertainment with its permission.
It clearly doesn’t sit comfortably with many of the company’s customers, thousands of whom have already raised formal objections, that the land which Yorkshire Water obtains their drinking water from is also leased out as a killing ground.
We welcome the investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office into whether Yorkshire Water has acted lawfully by refusing to disclose the number of red grouse shot on its land.”
The complaint filed with the ICO is the latest escalation in a high-profile campaign urging Yorkshire Water to stop leasing land for grouse shooting amid widespread damage to wildlife and the environment.
Wild animals, including foxes, stoats, weasels and hare are being killed by trap, snare and guns on the company’s land to ensure large numbers of game birds are available for shooting. Hundreds of bone-breaking traps have been found across the company’s leased moors, many of which are popular with walkers.
Gamekeepers operating on Yorkshire Water land have also burnt large sections of heather moorland to engineer prime breeding habitat for red grouse. Important peatland habitat has also been damaged by burning, driving out native wildlife and damaging blanket bog.
Nick Weston, Head of Campaigns at the League Against Cruel Sports, said:
“Yorkshire Water’s customers have a right to know exactly what the company they buy their water from is doing with the land it owns and the impact that has on the local environment and ecology.
It is high time that Yorkshire Water ends grouse shooting on its moors. Not only for the sake of the animals and environment, but for the peace of mind of its paying customers.”
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Please sign this e-petition by Chris Packham calling for a ban of driven grouse shooting.
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What next, vegetarian customers querying how many sheep are sent
to market ?.
It is irrelevant really, how many grouse are shot, it is the ever more intensive management that is the problem.
If record bags could be achieved, with minimal input, everybody might be happy, except LACS and those of like mind.
However , applying pressure to the boards of accountable companies,
Utilities providers, and such as the National Trust, is the only way that
progress will be achieved, in the short to medium term, as a ban on
Driven Grouse is a long way off.
If shooting is to continue on these estates, targets for management can be set, and reached, showing the way forward for others, as is happening on National Trust ground in the High Peak.
This in effect, is a form of licencing, and should be used to iron out
any problems before a scheme could be implemented more widely.
Its almost ironic that Yorkshire Water allows grouse management on some of its catchments given the at least in part funded the EMBER report that so criticised one of the commonly practised management techniques used by those same grouse shooters—rotational burning. This certainly happens on the one YW moor shot for grouse I am familiar with. That same moor had a pair of prospecting harriers in 1996 surprisingly the whole area the birds were obviously interested in was burnt in the last few days of the burning season. The moor also hosts one of the nest sites of a Peregrine territory that has not been successful for over 20 years, I wonder why?
and does a good dose of the lead from that shooting end up in the customers water?
m parry – some must, but I have seen no evidence that this is of any consequence.