The following was first posted on 3 July 2017 – in a way nothing has changed.
It’s good to talk. But talking can also be used as a refuge from taking action.
If there’s one thing that is likely to get me animatedly irritated (and friends have seen this happen a few times) is when somebody comes onto the scene of the grouse shooting/moorland/raptor persecution issue and says something along the lines of ‘Well, the important thing is that we all keep talking to each other‘ if they are from the shooting side of whatever divide might exist, or ‘Surely we can make progress with a bit of give and take‘ if they come from the conservation throng. All the former category are still there saying the same thing that they have for more than two decades and all the latter category have faded into the background and left the talking role to the next well-meaning optimist who doesn’t understand how the real world works.
Here is a short history of talking between moorland owners and managers and the RSPB (and others were involved too) as best I know it.
The Langholm Study – it’s worth starting here and noting that when the late, and reasonably great, Dick Potts came to see me when I was Head of Conservation Science at the RSPB I agreed on behalf of the RSPB that we would be partners in the Langholm Study (Joint Raptor Study). This was in the early 1990s (I’m not sure exactly when but the study started on the ground in 1992).
This was how I recalled it in Fighting for Birds:
I remember the Game Conservancy’s Dick Potts talking to me about whether the RSPB would join in and help to fund the study at Langholm in the Scottish Borders. Dick told me that the study he and others had in mind would involve ‘protecting’ the hen harriers on a Scottish estate and seeing what happened when harrier numbers increased – as presumably they would once fully protected. How many harriers would there be and what impact would they have on the shootable surplus of red grouse in the summer?
As I remember it, Dick and I thought that harrier numbers might increase to maybe half a dozen pairs on the Langholm Moor estate of the Duke of Buccleugh and that that might mean that the shootable surplus of red grouse might halve in numbers or thereabouts. What actually happened took just about everyone by surprise.
The results of Langholm (see here and Chapter 3, all of Chapter 3, in Inglorious) made it clearer, though it took a while for it to sink in, that there was no way that one could have intensive grouse shooting at the scale it is at the moment without widespread, illegal and systematic wildlife crime, particularly the killing of Hen Harriers, eagles and Peregrines. And the criminals weren’t interested in reforming.
For the few years after Langholm, 1996-1999 roughly, a lot of the focus was on diversionary feeding as conservationists bent over backwards to find a legal solution to the fact that predators eat Red Grouse without paying for the privilege. This failed as grouse moor managers were perfectly happy to bump off raptors in the expectation that no-one would catch them – this was before satellite tagging came on the scene.
At this time, senior RSPB figures, more senior than I was, spent lots of time visiting moorland estates and talking to their owners and managers about the way forward. The suggested way forward seemed to be that the RSPB should be good chaps (and chapesses) and turn a blind eye to wildlife crime because we were on the same side really. Quite what that side was, was never clear to us, and this period took up a lot of time but achieved nothing.
When I became RSPB Conservation Director in 1998 Hen Harriers and grouse shooting were way down my list of priorities; I had a big new job to learn, many facets of which were completely new to me and rather scary. However, the discussions with the landed continued. I remember two meetings held at The Lodge between very senior RSPB people and very senior representatives from the moorland owners which both ended in big rows – and it wasn’t me who was rowing, I can assure you. There didn’t seem to be a lot of common ground as the grouse shooters didn’t want to change and neither did we: they wanted scope to break the law and we told them that wasn’t on. If anything, talking was making things worse rather than better.
There were two other meetings at The Lodge which I described in Fighting for Birds. One, it must have been around 1999 or 2000 I think, was with a prominent shooting manager who is still a prominent shooting manager and this was how I described it:
The other was with a representative of grouse shooting:
A grouse moor manager came to The Lodge one sunny day and, as was my normal practice, I took him for a walk around the attractive grounds after lunch in the canteen. I used to do this with visitors partly so that they would see that this was quite a big operation with c. 500 staff working at the headquarters. I asked him to explain to me what he saw in grouse shooting and he started by saying that it was like anything in life, you have to pay through the nose for the real pleasures. He lost me there. The real pleasures in life – love, friendship, a sunrise and the beauty of nature for example, can’t be bought. We were starting from very different places.
There were plenty of other, private and sincere meetings, in London, in Yorkshire, in Peterborough, all over the place, which came to very little, but not from want of trying. This approach clearly wasn’t getting very far and after a period when the statutory nature conservation agencies tried to broker some legal deals, all parties agreed to go into a more formal form of arbitration procedure with experts. We all agreed to meet in a process guided by the Environment Council and did so from 2006 until 2012 (which was after I had left the RSPB in early 2011). This is what I wrote about it in Inglorious:
It’s good to talk, and for over six years a group of organisations (BASC, Countryside Alliance, Country Land and Business Association, GWCT, Moorland Association, National Gamekeepers’ Organisation, RSPB, Hawk and Owl Trust, Northern England raptor groups) sat around the table several times a year, under the auspices of the Environment Council, and tried to find a solution to the conflict between Hen Harriers and driven grouse shooting. I attended a good number of those meetings myself and used my best endeavours to find a way through the impasse. It always seemed that the grouse shooters simply wanted to be allowed to carry on with their crimes with our blessing rather than meeting us halfway. I’m sure it felt differently to them.
Just about all the organisations involved were paying for the conciliation and arbitration services of the Environment Council staff, so the whole business wasn’t without costs of time and money, but I felt that it was certainly worth the effort. And I realised that it would look bad if the RSPB pulled out, so even towards the end of my involvement, when I was losing hope of a breakthrough, I kept us in the process. And I made sure that I personally attended as many meetings as possible, to signal that RSPB commitment at a senior level. During this long process the players got to know each other better, swapped jokes, argued with passion but almost always with politeness and explored options such as quota schemes that would allow grouse moors to ‘cap’ the number of Hen Harriers on their land, diversionary feeding , translocation schemes, reintroductions to the English lowlands etc., etc.
I’ve often wondered what it would have taken to find a solution. And sometimes I have thought, since I believe that everyone would much rather have had a solution than not had a solution, that maybe there is no solution out there that will keep both ‘sides’ grumpy but neither side feeling as though they had completely won or lost.
I wouldn’t say that the process left me jaded, but it didn’t make me feel optimistic about the future. In the summer of 2012, about a year after I left the RSPB, the RSPB left this dialogue, having decided that it wasn’t getting anywhere – after seven years of talking, that seemed fair enough. And soon afterwards the Environment Council itself folded, and with it its website and the rather cryptic records of our off-the-record discussions.
Whenever anyone new comes onto the scene of the conflict between Hen Harriers and grouse shooting with high hopes of finding a solution to the problems of both sides by ‘getting people round the table’, I think back to many tables over many years. We tried, all of us – we really did.
It was in that period that I did stick my neck out quite a long way as described in Fighting for Birds:
I also wrote a piece, published in the Shooting Times , which asked those good men in the grouse shooting community to stand up and work with nature conservationists against those, perhaps few, who break the law. Although that initiative was well-received at the time no progress was made then either.
And then the coalition and Conservative governments rode into town with another stakeholder dialogue. This lasted from 2012 to 2016 and was a complete failure in that it did not address, in any meaningful way, the core problem for the Hen Harrier, illegal persecution, and yet addressed the economic problem that Hen Harriers pose to grouse moor managers – that they eat Red Grouse. In a post on this blog I wrote this:
Whatever it was that Defra published yesterday, it was not an action plan to save Hen Harriers. It was a hybrid between a Hen Harrier inaction plan and an action plan to postpone the demise of driven grouse shooting. In that regard it was generally a damp squib; a small victory for the grouse shooting industry and a small defeat for the RSPB and a rather larger defeat for the Hen Harrier.
There has been quite a lot of talking, and very little has come out of it. Maybe you think you could have done better, and maybe you could, but the time for talking must surely be over. Talking to the grouse moor managers has been spectacularly unproductive. The two sides do not have a lot in common, they do not have that many joint interests and there has been no progress. Can you point to a single grouse moor manager who has supported the RSPB position and criticised his (or her) own peers? Has anyone broken ranks? No, instead they got together and funded YFTB to attack the RSPB!
I don’t think that the Moorland Association, BASC, GWCT or Countryside Alliance have any influence over those of their supporters who kill birds of prey. They are a busted flush. They don’t have any right to be in the room where people seek solutions to wildlife crime because they can’t deliver a single thing on the ground. At best they are used by the criminal elements to keep everything in the long grass and at worst they are complicit with this.
So, the RSPB needs a new strategy and there is a very faint sign of it in Martin Harper’s recent blog which says ‘…this approach only works if members of the shooting community are prepared to accept there are problems that need to be addressed. All too often when issues are raised with intensive driven grouse management, the reaction tends to be to pull up the drawbridge and deny there are any problems, rather than accepting the challenge to make things better. For as long as this denial persists, collaboration will always be challenging.’.
The drawbridge analogy is an amusingly accurate one. The picture is one of the moorland owners inside their castle and the RSPB stuck outside pleading to be let in for a friendly chat – and there has been a 25 year wait. The RSPB should take the hint – stop waiting for the invitation to sit at the grouse moor owners’ feet and start undermining their castle’s foundations.
In some ways nothing has changed – the grouse moor managing industry is as obdurate as ever and hasn’t given an inch, and government has been utterly feeble. It’s almost as if they were mates with those running this environmentally damaging industry.
But the RSPB is reviewing its position on shooting, and cannot easily maintain its softly softly position on driven grouse shooting without truly alienating quite a few of its core supporters.
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I still regularly came across birders, and well meaning conservationists that said but surely we should be talking, nothing will change if we don’t. My reply was and still is ” It is pointless talking to them they do not want change, their organisations cannot or will not deliver change. They see Talking as an end in itself because it takes a little of the heat of them. “We’re talking” they can claim.
I’ve been involved one way or another for a long time in Hen Harriers and moorland, talking to them is pointless it helps to cover their nakedness, all it will do is damage you. They should not be involved in RPPDG or anything else, they are or all act like Bloody handed apologists. That is how they should be treated by us— with the utter contempt they deserve. Its why DGS should and in the end will be banned, their intransigence in defiance of the law.
The only talk that might get me it be interested in their views again would be when they start “shopping” to the police the criminals in their midst.
Interestingly when you do talk to individuals involved in grouse even the best of them have no grasp of how predator prey relationships work and certainly no handle on the truth of Harrier biology. ( or Peregrine, Goshawk, Short-eared Owl even Crow or Gull)
Good of Mr Wilson to prove your point …
“Interestingly when you do talk to individuals involved in grouse even the best of them have no grasp of how predator prey relationships work and certainly no handle on the truth of Harrier biology. ( or Peregrine, Goshawk, Short-eared Owl even Crow or Gull).”
…so nicely, Paul.
It is not difficult; either it is legal to shoot, poison or trap raptors in this country or it isn’t.
The shooting industry claims that it is a £2 billion pound industry. Tesco’s, Marks and Spencer and Harrods, and even eventually the Post Office, have to operate within the laws of this land otherwise the consequences of their inaction and public opinion take over.
It is clear that the shooting industry will have to fundamentally change so that is follows these norms. We, their critics, are very clearly not going away.
They are like Dominic Cummings they think the rules and regulations apply to the rest of us but not them. Indeed many of them are fond of quoting rules and regulations to those of us who visit their land which no longer or never did apply.
“I’m the keeper I want to search your car”
“Open access does not apply in the breeding season”
“This moor is shut”
Dear Mark,
No one can deny your enthusiasm and the passion with which you write about these matters, and I applaud your commitment. I agree with you on many parts and enjoy your writing.
I don’t agree however that the two sides of the grouse shooting argument are in reality anywhere near as far apart as you suggest. In my view, the problem is that the arguments on both sides have become so polarised, and, as much as I empathise with your position, I don’t think you help the cause with the personal tones and classist accusations (castles and digging foundations etc). This cheapens your argument and you lose support. You know the vast majority of people who benefit from grouse shooting are not rich toffs in castles.
I believe I am an example of someone who represents the middle ground here. I’m an RSPB member of 25+ years, will spend large amounts of time each year travelling regularly birdwatching (though not so much internationally anymore!), and would love to spend even more of my spare time doing so if I could. Yet, at the same time, I do occasionally shoot (not grouse it must be said`), and enjoy beating and picking up whenever i’m asked. It is clear to me as an observer that the variety of birdlife I see on and around shoots near me in Lancashire is, more often than not, far more interesting and varied than land not used for shooting (other than some coastal areas). This must be recognised for what it is, for if we start ignoring the facts we lose credibility in our argument, however persuasive.
Now, don’t get me wrong, what has happened to the Hen Harrier in this country is appalling and desperately sad to see. I have no doubt that the vast majority of their deaths are associated with grousekeepers. But clearly this is happening for a reason, because of their detrimental impact on the grouse numbers. Rather than aiming for a goal it will not be possible (nor necessarily advantageous given the wide ecological consequences) to achieve, in trying to get gamekeepers to stop all predators would a more reasonable position not be, say, a compromise whereby we accept that Buzzard numbers have rocketed across the country in recent years where it would be easy argue their population numbers now pose a severe detrimental risk to survival of many smallers birds.
Why not, as a genuine compromise offering, suggest to the shooting lobby that a limited number of buzzards may be controlled in certain areas and under certain conditions, where it is clear that they have a detrimental impact on both the ecological surroundings and the economic ones.
This is not going to risk the stable buzzard population numbers, but would be the middle ground that might get gamekeepers and the shooting lobby to start listening to you and move their position. If then a ‘Grade A bird’ (Hen Harrier or Peregrine say) were found to be shot on a piece of land used for shooting they would immediately lose their license to control buzzards. Sure, this would mean that some Hen Harriers would still eat young grouse, but the total numbers of which would be less as the buzzards would be controlled.
Unless there is a real offering from one side or the other, this battle between certain elements of the RSPB and the shooting community will continue forever I suspect, all to the detriment of the vast majority of birdlife. I am sure that the vast majority of neutrals who enjoy the benefits of both sides would support this position.
I’m sure you will have views on this and would welcome your thoughts.
Yours,
Brian Wilson
Brian – have you read my book, Inglorious https://markavery.info/books/inglorious-conflict-uplands-published-30-july/ ?
Hen Harriers don’t have a detrimental impact on grouse numbers, they have a detrimental impact on grouse bags which is very different and where the conflict arises.
You’re suggesting that because one group of people is behaving illegally and selfishly then everyone else should give them something to placate them and make them feel better about life. Interesting approach to life.
Dear Mark,
Thank you for swift response.
Sorry if i was not clear, my point was more of a general question really. As to my approach to life, i’d alway rather seek compromise of some sort, and taking whatever steps are required to get there, even if it doesn’t bring you everything you want but at least a significant improvement. It sounds from your article that many of the people you speak to from the conservation world feel the same?
Would I be prepared to see some buzzards controlled each year if it meant that Hen Harriers then made a proper comeback, then yes, of course I would. Neither side of this argument has changed tack since the start, and it’s toxic the majority of us. Would it not be at least an idea to consider?
Thank you again for taking the time to respond.
Yours,
Brian.
Brian – you seem to think that the RSPB is in a position to compromise on the law of the land. and did you read the article on which you are commenting properly – it’s point was that compromises were offered by conservationists in the past and spurned by shooters.
Dear Mark,
Sorry, I just re-read it again but don’t see the details of what the precise compromises offered in the past to shooters by conservationists (or vice-versa) were?
At the moment it just feels like one of those divorce cases where a couple shred all their assets trying to destroy each other an end up with no money left at all because they have spent it all with the lawyers!
My question, which I would be grateful if you would answer, is whether or not, if the law were changed to permit it, the RSPB or you personally would be prepared to support limited control of buzzards, which would surely placate the shooting side here, and would likely be enough to allow the Hen Harriers to make a full recovery? If you calculated the number of grouse killed by Hen Harriers and buzzards together, then subtracted the number of buzzard kills, my sense would be that the number reached would be an acceptable one for the shooting community and the number of Hen Harriers would soon be back up to the numbers people like me would like to see.
Do you see any value in that?
Thank you.
Yours,
Brian
Brian – you’ve got a thing about Buzzards it seems. It is possible, though rightly difficult, to get a licence to kill Buzzards.
I’m curious to know what evidence you have that buzzards now pose a severe detrimental risk to survival of many smaller birds. Which particular species would you claim to have suffered any discernible population impact caused by buzzards?
Thanks Mark for your reply. I’m not saying for a moment it should be an easily awarded license to get to control buzzards, but it does strike me as an obvious area of compromise. Do you know of any examples of buzzard licenses being awarded? I’ve never come across one.
Brian
Brian – yes I do know if instances where licences have been awarded to kill Buzzards. So that are of compromise already exists – so when do I get the other side of the bargain you were offering, please?
You didn’t say whether you hd read my book Inglorious did you…
Brian, are you feeling OK.
I find it hard to believe you are serious so let’s make sure I understand.
Using your idea of a certain amount of illegal activity should be acceptable then where burglary would be on the same program we must suppose if your house was burgaled then as long as only certain things were taken that is acceptable to you.
You really are unbelievable.
Even a outspoken person that I am I cannot say what I really think.
You don’t need to Dennis , its what we are all thinking and it is not putting Mr Wilson in a very good light now is it!
You suggest that “a limited number of buzzards may be controlled in certain areas and under certain conditions, where it is clear that they have a detrimental impact on both the ecological surroundings and the economic ones.”,and that “their population numbers now pose a severe detrimental risk to survival of many smaller birds.” Given that there is no evidence Buzzards affect the population of “smaller birds” and or that they have “a detrimental impact on … the ecological surroundings” you are setting a rather higher bar than exists at present to obtain a licence to kill Buzzards.
Dear Mr Wilson
No one can deny your bravery – or is it actually folly?- in contributing to this blog, given the sentiments expressed. A word of advice however: your opening paragraph which presumably seemed balanced and generous to you was actually rather patronising. Mark is indeed passionate, enthusiastic and committed, but you left out the one attribute that would undermine the rest of your case. He is an expert on this matter.
Still looking forward to the peer-reviewed analyses showing Buzzards have a population impact on the little birds and that that is the reason for their decline rather than the more startlingly obvious one that modern farming practices are destroying their food supply and so starving them to death.
And also, given that the persecution of Hen Harriers is actually both absolutely against the law and bang out of order, especially given that those responsible are amongst the more affluent in society, why should anyone be expected to compromise with them in order to reduce the number of Harriers (Eagles and Peregrines) persecuted? Isn’t this like offering Bank Robbers licence to rob rural post offices as long as they leave the big four banks alone?
I had the privilege to be able to watch a Buzzard displaying yesterday, something I’ve seen often before but which still delights and so I for one am not very happy at your offering up this fantastic – and thankfully now commoner – bird on the sacrificial altar to appease organised crime.
yours etc.
Francis
PS I see Mr Dislike has changed sides, but is still too shy to come to your defence!
Dear Francis,
Thank you for outlining this and I do apologise, Mark, for any offence caused, that was certainly not the intention at all. Instead quite the opposite was the purpose, to reinforce that I am certainly not an expert or a scientist, just an enthusiastic amateur. But that doesn’t mean i don’t love birdwatching and am enjoying improving my knowledge as my pace of life slows down. It has been that desire to improve my understanding I suppose that raised my interest in this debate in the first place, and I’m grateful for Mark’s clear outline of the history of the issues.
My main point is if we are looking for some sort of sustainable long term solution to the problem, which is what I assume most of the middle ground want to see on both sides (at least in my conversations), then would some sort of achievable Buzzard control not provide a starting point to real change? I enjoy watching them as much as anyone, but I do see so many of them these days, often to the detriment of others. Only last week I saw two buzzards attacking a kite , which i’d not seen before. If buzzards are killing grouse chicks, as well as ground nesting birds in the uplands, to a point where the grouse numbers are unsustainable then it strikes me as alleviating that problem to the benefit of the Hen Harrier and other rarer birds of prey would be something at least to consider. Raptor persecution at the moment – largely as a result I believe of the RSPB’s investigation team’s efforts – strikes me as unselective and opportunistic at whatever species happens to have the misfortune of flying overhead. If we lost a few Buzzards, but were able to protect our desperately precious Hen Harrier numbers as a result, that would be something I would be happy to see. Or am I being wilfully optimistic? Anyway, thank you for taking the time to respond, Francis.
Brian.
Brian – you’ve been asked several times about the evidence for an impactt of buzzards on any species – you keep avoiding that question. It seems to be quite important to your view of where the middle ground can be found.
Brian you mention that you saw a couple of buzzards harrying a kite and put this forward as evidence that there may be too many buzzards. Was the kite actually harmed? I am guessing not. I’d suggest that these kinds of interactions are part and parcel of the normal behavioural repertoire of many birds and buzzards themselves are often harried in this way by various other species. I have seen cuckoos being harried by meadow pipits and I am sure many others have sen this too. Would you suggest therefore that there are too many meadow pipits and we should consider bumping a few off?
The reason for the lack of progress is that the RSPB is so tepid in its campaigning.
If all these meetings were so fruitless, why has the organisation not been shouting a million times louder – in public?
It astonishes me how an organisation with so many members persists in punching below its weight – not just on harrier persecution but on agro-chemicals, planning policy and much else.
Martin Harper puts out an occasional blog, but that hardly represents campaigning.
Kevin Cox announces an inquiry, but when – eventually – its report is published, we all know it will immediately be kicked into the long grass, never to be heard of again.
I am sorry to say that, as chief executive, Beccy Speight, has been a disappointment. She just tweets platitudes about the wonders of nature, the dawn chorus, sitting in the garden etc, etc. Has she no fire in her belly? Did no one tell her about the women whose zeal led to the formation of the RSPB?
The RSPB is also seriously let down by a totally ineffective PR set-up.
While it just waffles, the shooting lobby has a clear and determined focus.
James, spot on. The answer to this issue does not lie with the RSPB. They are the past and have failed us. The shooting industry uses them as a punchbag.
It lies with you, me, Mark Avery, Ruth Tingay, Wild justice, NERF, the media, the facts and the massive number of law abiding people in our country.
An interesting little insight into the mentality of the shooting community and its attitude to what conservationists say was given in Sir Jim Paice’s blog piece for GWCT this week in which he talked about the item on pheasant numbers on Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ programme. I had not listened to the programme prior to reading Paice’s blog today but did so immediately afterwards and could not believe that he had listened to the same piece. Sir Jim started his piece with a pious little homily about being balanced and neutral and that ” those seeking to change opinion…should present all the evidence in a balanced way and let the facts speak.” He then went on to describe Pat Thompson’s contribution to the More or Less programme as being some kind of massively negative diatribe which left the ‘sporting world’ feeling that their side was not fairly represented. Leaving aside the fact that Thompson had been invited on to the programme to discuss the credibility of a claim in the media about the biomass of pheasants relative to other birds and therefore discussion of other aspects of game management – positive or negative – would not have been relevant, he could not have been more measured. Furthermore he answered the question using data that had come from GWCT themselves!
Given this sort of tunnel-visioned attitude by many in the shooting community it is sadly unsurprising that talks between shooting organisations and conservation bodies have been so unfruitful over the years.
For one who claims to be concerned about ” ignoring the facts”, Mr Wilson demonstrates an extremely limp grasp of them himself. It seems that 25 years of receiving “Birds” and its subsequent re-title has taught him absolutely nothing.
Mr Coop,
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. Your suggestions though are reinforcing of the point I was trying to make. We have become so uncompromising on boths sides, and I don’t understand why and neither side benefit here.
We are making our job much harder by just saying they are wrong and we are right 100%, (even though we are generally more right than them).
And why so much anger towards the RSPB from people? A basic litmus test from most of the enthusiasts I know would suggest about a 90% satisfaction rate with the services they provide their members. They are strong national institution and millions of people benefit from visiting their reserves each year. In that respect, are they not serving their purpose to their members and the nation?
Brian – interesting characterisation of the RSPB. I always hope it is a nature conservation organisation but you are describing it as something that provides services for its members.
Thanks Mark. Can they not be both? They provide services to their members (access to wonderful reserves, great content through members magazine Nature’s home’, educational material, podcasts, trips etc) as well as fulfilling its role as a nature conservation organisation. They are not mutually exclusive, are they?
Brian – it is I who pointed that out to you, I think. I would like the balance shifted more back towards the charitable objects.
Yes, it was “thoughtful”, wasn’t it. Though it didn’t take much reasoning to realise that (as Mark’s pointed out) Mr Wilson hasn’t provided a shred of evidence to support his ridiculous claims. His smarmy attempts at presenting his flawed idea of a “balanced view” are fooling nobody.
God only knows why he exhibits such lamentable ignorance! Maybe he should spend less time having fun fun fun shooting wild animals for entertainment, and more time researching the subject upon which he opines. I get around enough to realise that 66 years of “compromise” with criminals has resulted in sweet FA. Wouldn’t it be nice if shooters bothered to educate themselves, instead of parroting the same song that has been completely discredited time and again, and break away from the herd mentality? Maybe then, our countryside could be free from this horrendous abuse, and we could all enjoy some good vibrations!
Mr Wilson there can be no compromise along the route you suggest. Birds of prey are protected by law, the debate about that was had as long ago as 1954 and parliament is unlikely to revisit the subject as a whole. Any licence to control normally protected species has to be justified in its own right, not part of some grubby “compromise” in which the moorland “cabal of criminals” will deliver a few more Hen Harriers for the sacrifice of some Buzzards, because Buzzards are commoner and may eat some grouse too. Apart from the fact that the grouse cabal have never delivered on any promise your suggestion smacks of ignorance of ecology, the law and the history of this criminality.
We don’t want compromise we want an end to this criminality with more and better enforcement and much stronger penalties which would allow the police to use some more effective tactics. That for us is the way forward and any failure should result in a ban of DGS and compulsory habitat restoration at the cost of the landowner.
A very good and professional write up of the history of the meeting and talking to the shooters, Mark and well worth keeping to use and show others when the situation demands it. For example I think a copy with a covering letter of explanation should go to the Environment Ministers, their opposition shadow ministers and their junior ministers, of England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland.
In addition while I know other European countries do not have the extensive moorlands that the U.K. has, it might however be worth at some stage checking on how well governed countries in the EU like The Netherlands and Sweden control shooting.
Having said this I have to say I find the situation rather bizarre. To me it is a bit like robbers (in this case the shooters) saying I want to keep breaking the law and keep robbing your house but let’s talk about it!!!
The fact of the matter is that these shooters are breaking the law and that must stop. The other facts are that Driven Grouse Shooting severely damages our moorlands and leads to big increases in CO2, and flooding. Additionally many other animals like mountain hares are killed and huge areas of land are given over to a few people who enjoy killing our wildlife and destroying our environment for fun.
Unfortunately we currently have a political party and a Government that does little or nothing to curb these ,mostly illegal, types of activities because many of their members are shooters. A thoroughly disgraceful situation which shames this country.
However this will not last very much longer I am sure when a new much more moderate Labour Government comes into power, as it will the situation will change radically for the shooters and this very nasty, cruel and damaging so called “sporting practice” will be seriously curbed if not stopped altogether.
Is the issue here that we know we are right. We know the shooters are breaking the law, but the reality is, in the grand scale of issues facing our country, birds of prey disappearing illegally is just not as high as we would wish it to be?
I believe that number is gradually increasing, largely due to the excellent work of people like Mark, RSPB and others, but in reality 95% of the general public really don’t care? That’s the problem we face. I live in a small village on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. If you asked anyone in our village what the policing priorities should be I can tell you immediately it is not raptor persecution. Indeed, some – who I would not bracket as either pro or against shooting – are appalled by the disproportionate funding that the police get for raptor persecution issues rather than trying to tackle the thefts of people’s heating oil supply, burglaries, anti-social behaviour and, worst of all recently, fly tipping. I would be surprised if raptors were in the top twenty to be honest.
I have distributed Operation Owl materials and more often than not the people I give them to don’t want to be part of it and would rather stay out of it. I got a very frosty reception in the local pub when i tried to leave some information there, because from September to January so many of their bookings come from shooters. We have to recognise that. I am slowly resigning myself to the reality that for many this is just not a priority and the outcome does not justify the means.
There is also a perception that most of those criticising shooting and campaigning for an end to grouse shooting come from down south and are viewed as dictating to locals. Even my husband and I, who have lived in the village for nearly 12 years, are still sometimes viewed with suspicion I think.
I would like nothing more than to see an end to raptor persecution, but it is not an issue to many people, where as the local economy really is. I think there is a danger that we actually do ourselves more harm than good with our current approach. Maybe we need to rethink?
I would be interested to hear the views of others on this forum too. I don’t mean to sound despondent, but i’ve been fighting this fight for too long and am starting to accept the reality for most people just don’t care that much.
Mind you, this is entirely understandable when you see the state that many of those who recently made day trips to the Dales after lockdown left the place in. It was a disgrace. Rubbish everywhere. Gates and signs vandalised. New born lambs being chased. People have no respect for nature and local environments. It’s sad really.
Carol – thanks for your first post here.
Don’t get despondent, these things take time but we are far closer to an end of driven grouse shooting than I think you feel. Restrictions on burning of peatlands will be impotrant and come from a completely different direction than bird of prey persecution.
Take a rest, do something else for a while, but we will win!
I wish I didn’t agree with you, Carol, but I do.
Thanks Marian. At least we have platforms like this though to keep us smiling.
Me too.
Thanks Mark. I wish I could be as positive as you. It certainly doesn’t feel like that in our small corner of Yorkshire. It feels like i’m very much a minority, and becoming increasingly unpopular in the village! We might need a new pub to go to too. Perhaps you could open one here?
Anyway, thank you and we will try not to be too despondent. It is hard though.
Carol
Carol, patience as Mark suggests. Look what’s happening with the moves for a Langholm Moor buy out and the community support there. Is it really a south of the country campaign to end Driven Grouse Shooting? Is there not a lot of southern money coming for the grouse shoots and to drink in the pub? Surely if we go back to the map showing the nation wide voting on the last petition to Government, to ban DGB, (search Marks blog for numerous comments on this), the support was not urban or southern biased yet a petition supporting DGS gained big support from central London!