Tuesday and half of Wednesday are set aside for our (and the RSPB’s) appeal against the judgment of Justice Lang on brood meddling.
I’m planning to be there – government travel bans permitting.
There will not be a single Hen Harrier in court but we are taking this case for them – Hen Harriers can’t engage a talented legal team – they need us to do that for them. So we are.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this legal challenge. Win or lose we’ve given it a go.
And we won’t hear the result for days, probably weeks, maybe months.
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Brood meddling has never been about helping Hen Harriers, although there are those who argue otherwise, it is about minimising ( to zero) any perceived impact on Red Grouse shooting. This is reward for the widespread criminality within grouse shooting that has been illegally killing harriers, almost with impunity for countless years. It is an admission by government that they cannot control or stop this illegality, a sop to the criminals in the hope they will comply. It is no way to run the law or the conservation of protected wildlife, its a total disgrace and a dangerous precedent.
Even if acceptable, which it isn’t in any way, the density trigger used is between 8 and 30 times lower than the breeding density of harriers that might have an effect on autumn grouse numbers. Unethical, immoral and hopefully illegal, thank you Wild Justice for standing up for Hen Harriers.
Well said, Paul. I hope it goes well for Wild Justice and the RSPB.
Effectively it is like the banks giving money to bank robbers in exchange for them not robbing the bank. In other words brood meddling is a kind of protection racket.
Yes Jonathan I supposed it is, the difference is that their is no comeuppance if you don’t comply. I omitted in my description of BM unscientific because it is despite being presented by DEFRA and NE as if it is normal good science it is no such thing the density used being based almost on a figure plucked from the air that they hope grouse moor managers will accept. The whole thing is shameful and having co-operated with NE in Harrier monitoring from 2002 I have for sometime withdrawn all such co-operation over BM.
The very best of luck tomorrow. I do hope that the other side’s lawyer is not the same one as last time. Man he was boring!
Win or lose, it needs to be done. Let them know they are being watched.
All the best an thank you.
Good luck
Best of luck Mark. Thanks to you, Chris and Ruth for the many hours of work you put into this. Let’s hope common sense prevails.
We thank you and wish you all the best too, Mark, Ruth and Chris.
Reminded that all that is required for evil to prevail – is that good men and women do nothing. Well thank you, good men and women for what you are doing.
Do you know which judge will be hearing it, and how embedded into the shooting fraternity they are? Virtually all judges are, and there really needs to be a full expose on this. Dismantle the old boy network, from the top down.
Random – news in that later this evening.
A Big thank you Mark Ruth Chris and Everyone involved .Good Luck.
Wild Justice has been incredibly effective, the insight behind setting it up has proved to be of pure genius. It’s not just been incredibly successful from a legal perspective, but in bringing somewhat obscure topics into a more public domain. Many thanks to you, Ruth, Chris and your legal team and best of luck for tomorrow, but what an accomplishment WJ has been already!