Last week, on Friday and Sunday evenings BASC spokesmen were talking about what BASC was doing to rid their membership of wildlife criminals. Both Duncan Thomas and Steve Bloomfield were saying that BASC were doing their bit. I know both of them a little, I’ve met and talked to them, and I’d be more inclined to take Steve’s account than Duncan’s for some reason. Oh yes, it’s partly because of what Duncan once said to a room full of people in a meeting in Cumbria (see Inglorious p187) about birders being a big problem disturbing Hen Harriers rather than shooting interests bumping them off!
Duncan Thomas, BASC:
We’re very good at policing ourselves, I would strongly say that
Channel 4 news, 29 May https://www.channel4.com/news/birds-of-prey-become-victims-of-crime
Steve Bloomfield, BASC:
I’ve been with BASC for 12 years, and I can remember one incident where we evicted a member from our organisation because of a conviction for raptor persecution
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jrxz/countryfile-johns-home-patch Sunday 31 May 2020
…and when asked (the right question) by Tom Heap, didn’t that mean that BASC wasn’t bearing down on raptor persecution Mr Bloomfield said :
… I think I can take some heart actually in that when we do cross-reference convictions they aren’t our members. Which actually tells me that our message is getting across.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000jrxz/countryfile-johns-home-patch
Well, it is entirely possible that they are both completely correct. But where are these non-BASC criminal gamekeepers to be found one wonders?
Maybe BASC doesn’t have many gamekeepers as members? Surely not! Many shooters, including gamekeepers, are BASC members because it gives access to insurance at a good price so we’d expect BASC to have quite a lot of gamekeepers signed up. BASC was said by Tom Heap to represent 3,500 gamekeepers and that is a high proportion of all gamekeepers given that there are only 3,000 full-time gamekeepers in the UK according to the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. So where are these non-BASC criminal gamekeepers to be found?
I sat through nearly 13 years of RSPB Council meetings and I guess about three times in that period the RSPB expelled someone from its rather large (1,000,000+ ) membership for committing some offence against birds. As I recall, they were usually egg-collectors and they were usually asked to resign and only if they didn’t would they be chucked out. It may be the same with BASC – people are asked to jump before they are pushed, I don’t know.
But if BASC has 3,500 gamekeeper members and there are only 3,000 full-time gamekeepers in the UK then I think we come back to the question of whether BASC and shooting as a whole are doing a good job in rooting out the few, or many, bad apples.
It isn’t just me who pays close attention to what Duncan Thomas says; I see the Northern England Raptor Forum blog has been pointing out that Mr Thomas has been bad-mouthing the RSPB for using raptor persecution as a ‘cash cow’, which I assume means exaggerating the issue to bring in money. Duncan Thomas has no idea how ineffective a means of fund-raising that would be. But again, in slagging off the RSPB, Mr Thomas of BASC takes a very different line from Mr Bloomfield of BASC who was stressing how any persecution is too much and how BASC works closely with the RSPB.
BASC speaks with forked tongue, or at least with two voices. Does BASC loathe the RSPB or love it? Which one is going off message? After all the programmes did go out on the same few days (and won’t have been put together at very different times. Or is BASC deliberately trying to look reasonable and cuddly for a Countryfile audience (not a role for which I’d be picking Duncan Thomas on his past record) whereas bluster and attack is what they go for on a news programme. Or is Duncan Thomas just making his bid to be the next GWCT chair?
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I think BASC wants to be seen in both ways. As a tough critic of folk like Mark, Chris Packham, Ruth Tingay and the host of folk ( including me) who want an end to DGS because of lousy land management, but principally because we can see no other way to end raptor persecution.
Yet at the same time they want to appear reasonable to the general public and those conservationists not committed to that cause. So they are torn, do we use the reasonable arguments or do we use the stone wall anti “anti” arguments. I think this is true but am not entirely sure.
I don’t know Steve Bloomfield ( the reasonable one) but I do know Duncan Thomas. Duncan is an ex policeman, a wildlife liaison officer for Lancashire no less. I met him a number of times in that role (I was NERF chairman at the time) and was confused by his attitude, he seemed to be more on the side of the game estate than raptors and raptor workers. Now we know why, a dyed in the wool shooting man, in many ways there is nothing wrong in that. However he is the sort of shooting man for whom attack is defence, there is a programme on persecution problems so he attacks the source of the data (RSPB), he thinks there is much less, casts doubt, claims its about making money or that the police( who confirm that data he doesn’t like) should be left to get on with the job, as if RSPB or raptor workers are stopping them.
I don’t like Duncan Thomas, I don’t like what he says, how he says it or how he represents shooting. To me he is rude, bombastic, casting aspersions and failing completely to address a problem ( raptor persecution) which in the end can only bring restrictions to the “sport” he represents, if that problem remains unaddressed and solved.
For those of us who think the only solution is the banning of DGS and severe restrictions on the rest of shooting he gains us ground, long may he continue to be his obnoxious self.
I’m glad I’ve never met Duncan Thomas just reading his comments and knowing something of his background makes my blood boil – not helped by the fact that my brother is a policeman with some involvement in genuinely fighting wildlife crime. The rather notorious full DT story really needs to be brought to public attention it shows a total and blatant failure in one of our key institutions, one that should never have happened and we must ensure never happens again. His predictable smear that the RSPB is using raptor persecution as a cash cow shows how he talks bollocks – the RSPB has a deliberate policy of not making it a prominent issue on their event stands as they consider images of shot, trapped and poisoned raptors to be too ‘strong’ for most of the public. I think this is a terrible mistake myself.
If we want to preserve the concept of a ‘wildlife criminal’ as something bad we need sensible well made laws. The basis of such a law is correctly distinguishing between a good and bad action. Where laws fail to do this and ban good actions for no other reason than bad drafting we are entitled to break them as long as this is done openly. I support conservation and use non lethal methods (apart from stamping on slugs and snails). As MLK said there is a moral duty to break unjust laws. The Hunting Act is an unjust law and I am doing my moral duty by openly flouting it. By doing so I prevent the wildlife on my farm becoming a victim of the law. In the case of the Hunting Act wildlife crime is in my interest, their interest and the interest of the country as a whole.
Giles – you’ve made (re-made) your point – don’t spam this thread.
Not intending spamming Mark – fair point that the BASC should rid their numbers of SOME wildlife criminals but they should be actively encouraging others – as should Wild Justice. Where wildlife crime is a moral duty it is also a moral duty of conservation organisations including your own to encourage it. Indeed you do by non enforcement.
Giles – maybe follow Chris Packham’s example – I can assure you when he takes his two dogs out he does not have an armed group with him to shoot any deer that are flushed. Nor would anybody else. Wildlife crime in this instance is obviously justified. Anyone who looks in detail at this aspect of wildlife law can see it’s a complete absurdity. Your posts seem to be aimed at somehow getting Mark Avery to admit that the idea of having to kill herds of flushed deer is problematic. You will never do this, you need to understand the politics and peer pressure behind this. Mark is not the sort of person who would speak out against the senseless destruction of wildlife when to do so conflicts with his own interests. Your practice of using dogs to manage wild deer is clearly harmless and completely benign. Just carry on. I’m glad you don’t shoot the deer on your land.
johnny – another bizaree first comment here. Are you Giles in disguise?
Shooting is the best option for wildlife that’s why the Hunting Act stipulates it. This is in fact one area of law where the BASC and Wild Justice agree. We need urgently to extend the ground breaking protection afforded to mammals to birds. The more we shoot the better off they are. This applies to all birds and mammals.
greg – bizarre comment but thank you for it
“…is an unjust law and I am doing my moral duty by openly flouting it”. Thank you Giles for your earnest endeavours on behalf of non-landowning wildlife lovers like myself. I bet it is a tiresome and a costly thing to keep on Hunting, and I salute your efforts all the more knowing how unpleasant it must be for you. Suitably inspired, I think I will now wind up the gramophone and give Elgar a few spins.
I monitored stag hunting in the west country both before and after the ‘ban’. To be quite honest it’s not just people breaking the law that’s the problem it’s people obeying it. The two exemptions stag hunts use are the ‘flushing and stalking’ exemption and the ‘research and observation’ extension. The case against the Quantocks in 2009 was a landmark one. In it the judge explained how hunts could comply with the law and still hunt deer with dogs. A crucial part of this is the use of ten plus guns when flushing out – to kill the entire herd. In practice we started turning a blind eye to them not killing deer. Either way they always leave a few and these are often hunted for many hours. LACS now belatedly campaign for the research observation to be changed but the flushing exemption is politically sensitive. Even if the law is changed as LACS want they will still be able to carry on. All very depressing. Until people recognise all the flaws in the law and stop putting the protection of their legacy before animal welfare stag hunting will never stop.
There’ll be the one stag [Mark writes – Giles and all, this is a post about BASC not stags]
Positively Trumpian as Hen Harrier continue to hover on the ecge pf extinction as a breeding bird in England.
I’ve gone back to Inglorious and reread that bit again. It reminded me that actually in those early meetings with PC Thomas he kept claiming that birders were disturbing Hen Harriers, Peregrines and Eagle Owls in Bowland. Yet there was no evidence of this whatsoever outside his fevered brow, quite the reverse, there was strong evidence that a pair of peregrines had deserted due to disturbance by a fencing team and keepers on one of the private estates and the Eagle Owls were caused to desert by the activities of the police and their volunteers marking the eggs. It was bullshit from DT.
Another of his claims at the time was that there were a number of harrier pairs on private land that were doing very well but he couldn’t tell anybody details at the request of the owners and of course for the birds security ( This was repeated in Shooting Times). Details of these nests have never seen the light of day and were frankly the product of that fevered brow.
Bullshit again from DT and nothing has changed.
Just my own observation regards membership of organisations. A lot of grouse keepers in england (best guess 25-33%) are not members of BASC, as they view BASC with contempt for even having dialogue with conservation groups. In a way they are so ingrained and entrenched in their views to be “principled” in a perverted sort of way. The ones who are killing raptors and lying full in the face to you are the pure slime balls.
I’ve yet to meet a grouse keeper who is not a member of BASC for the insurance. I ‘ve met several who are not members of NGO, one of whom claimed he wouldn’t join “because it was full of persecutors.” He of course is no longer a keeper.
Hi Paul. Totally accept what you are saying, but I also stick to what I am saying…it may be that I am referring to that contingent who would point-blank not even engage with any raptor workers or conservationists.
Assuming that we go down the route taken by the Superb Hunting Act and have a ‘research and observation’ exemption then organisations like BASC and GWCT will have a role collating all the data from DGS research. The hunts do this themselves, continuing to gather the wealth of data on kills etc under the exemption. However I’d have thought having this done centrally would make sense.