Campaigning organisations Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s
Moors and the League Against Cruel Sports have welcomed a commitment
from Yorkshire Water to change the way it manages its land.
Instead
of automatically renewing the leases for grouse shooting, the utility
company – which is Yorkshire’s largest landowner – will instead review
each one to decide if grouse shooting will be allowed to continue.
The
announcement is in direct response to a high-profile campaign by BBYM
and the League urging the company to terminate its 11 grouse shooting
leases.
Luke Steele, Spokesperson for Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors, said:
We strongly welcome Yorkshire Water tightening up the rules on grouse shooting following wildlife persecution and environmental damage on some of the county’s most treasured moorlands.
Customer pressure combined with evidence captured by moorland monitors on Yorkshire Water land has focused the company’s mind on making urgent changes to conserve wildlife, habitat and benefit local communities.
Whilst this isn’t yet the end of grouse shooting and the problems the practice brings, the ball has moved one significant step closer to that goal.
Under the new arrangements being implemented by Yorkshire Water,
stricter contractual obligations will be placed on grouse shooting
tenants in the interim.
A zero-tolerance approach will be taken
to wildlife crime where grouse shooting leases can be ended if protected
wildlife is interfered with. This follows a tawny owl being found shot and stuffed in a wall on the company’s Wessenden Head & Digley Moor.
Routine
burning will be ended in line with scientific evidence demonstrating
the practice – which is used to engineer game bird breeding habitat –
degrades peatland, contributes to flooding, pollutes catchment water and
drives out sensitive breeding birds. This follows a large section of blanket bog being burnt on Stanbury Moor in February.
Grouse
shooting tenants will also be required to restore vast swathes of
peatland degraded through harmful game bird management practices, such
as burning, which risk conservation designations of the sites. This
follows habitat changing from important blanket bog to low-quality heathland on Yorkshire Water’s leases moors at Scar House and Angram Reservoirs.
Andrew Knott, Chief Executive Officer at the League Against Cruel Sports, added:
Yorkshire Water should be commended for taking this first big step in ensuring the impact of grouse shooting is minimised, but we will continue our campaign to urge the company, and other landowners, to stop shooting for ‘sport’ for good.
BBYM and the League have vowed to continue campaigning until grouse shooting is ended on Yorkshire Water’s moors.
– ENDS –
Great news, though you think they’d have thought of this stuff themselves ages ago – peat erosion, flooding etc. Don’t YW know much about water?
They should never have let it happen in first place! How on earth this practice still continues anywhere is beyond me.
Great news. It would be good to see a map showing which moors YW leases to which estate along with those moors it doesn’t lease out.
Slightly off topic but not entirely. Following the weekend floods I heard calls in the media to dredge the River Don. Where are the calls to slow down the flow from the feeder hills. Start at the source of the problem and there would be far less an issue down stream.
Spot on! The relevant conservation organisations need to be switching media attention from the traditional ‘we need to dredge’ argument to the hills where most of the water comes from and needs to be kept there longer than it is at present. Doing that won’t just be by restoring peat bogs, but complimentary targeted tree planting and the insertion of woody material into waterways to form natural dams that hold back more water and release it more slowly during floods. The latter effect is of course greatly amplified by a certain buck toothed mammal with a flat tail and a propensity for building dams – we desperately need it back into as many of its old haunts in the hills as soon as possible. There are certain vested interests that wouldn’t want that of course, but instead of conservation organisations being afraid to broach the subject to strain fragile relationships with them, the vested interests need to be very, very afraid of what the public will think about their homes being under higher risk of flooding just because some people think shooting lots and lots of grouse is more important. About time the RSPB etc didn’t give a shit about what the estates think and went directly to the public to tell them how it really is regarding the present state of the land being crap for keeping their homes dry.
Yes, where are they. The EA is obviously on the wrong foot because they failed to predict the severity in Fishlake. But ‘we are not sure that dredging is the right thing but we’ll look at it’ is the voice of a defeated organisation, which could do with a bit of support from others.
Great reply
Public are fed up of floods
Created by grouse moor management.
But BBC are useless at getting
At least this is a step in the right direction. Remains to be seen if YW translate there words into meaningful actions when the situation arises. Congratulations to BBYM and the League on achieving this because for sure it would not have come about without their constant campaigning.
As others have said it is long overdue from YW one cannot help wonder if a number of their board members are shooters and like shooting our wildlife for fun.
Pure Yorkshire water with added lead, what could possibly go wrong.
I’ve read YW’s statement and they do not mention the use of lead shot. If they decide to renew leases, and I hope they don’t, the minimum they should require is no use of lead shot or plastic casings (unless they are removed). Good to see burning will be stopped but what about traps and snares?
Fishlake and Meadowhall – isn’t there a clue in the names
When N.G.Bailey courageously stopped Grouse shooting on their land because of B.B.Y.M ‘s campaign.it set a president for others to follow. The level of support from Y.W’s customers has been impressive.Once given the facts,people have followed through with their support. Let’s hope that as more and more companies want to wash their hands of their collaboration with the toxic Grouse shooting industry those who continue to uphold it look increasingly retrogressive and out of step with the majority.