Tomorrow is the Inglorious 12th – the traditional start of the grouse shooting season.
There couldn’t be a better day to sign our e-action calling for change on the moors – click here to have a look. Many thanks! Over 24,000 e-actions so far (since Saturday).
[registration_form]
If the two moors I drove through on saturday are shooting the first week (in fairness they don’t normally, but others do), they will be blasting at a lot of 3/4 grown and barely flying chicks. And for some over-keen and under-skilled City Boys, unloading an ounce or so of No6 shot into these exhausted feather-fluff-balls flopping their way to the Butts will be about all they can hit in order to demonstrate their masculine vigour. Then again the start date is purely about Parliamentary holidays, and has never been about that “managed harvesting of sustainable game” bullshit.
I did join this excellent idea but have as yet not had a reply from any of our Senedd representatives. I may also be useful for Welsh correspondents to automatically contact their Westminster MPs too.
I look forward to the demise of this recent tradition of using our rather resplendent Red Grouse as Living targets. I accept there is some skill involved having done it once But walked up, birds shot over dogs or taken by falcons is a more proper way to “hunt” these birds and a tradition going back when they were only taken by trained falcons. It also requires much less intrusive management if any at all.
I know some will disagree with me wanting all forms of hunting banned but to me there seems little or nothing wrong with hunting a natural surplus for food, pitting your speed of reaction and accuracy or the skill of your bird against the natural abilities of the grouse to escape.
Thank you for not including falconry within your condemnation of the grouse season. We work hard for the tiny number of grouse taken having an almost nil impact on the moorland we so enjoy. Ask any falconer and he will rightly tell you that it is no different to what the wild peregrine does all year. The only thing is we are constrained by the game seasons.
What bothers me about falconers is that the majority of them on social media say nowt about raptor persecution and the ones who do say something about it get slated.The biggest falconers club in Britain are raptor persecution deniers seems they are petrified to speak up against gamekeepers incase they don’t get back on the moor.
My Welsh Government member, Nick Ramsay, replied almost instantly with the following. I imagine many Tories will reply in similar – if not identical – terms:
“Welsh Conservatives understand that many people have strongly held views about this subject. We want to see a vibrant, working countryside enhanced by a diverse environment in Wales and, as driven grouse shooting contributes to that goal, I do not support an outright ban on the practice.
Shooting as a whole is worth about £2 billion a year to the economy, much of it in some of our remotest communities, including Wales. It supports more than 70,000 full-time equivalent jobs, 1,520 relating directly to grouse shooting. Grouse shooting is also one of the main land uses in the uplands along with grazing and forestry. However, it is essential that our wildlife is properly protected, and anyone involved in game management must respect the country’s conservation laws, which are among the toughest in the world.
It is important to recognise that healthy, active peatland provides numerous environmental benefits and ecosystem services including natural cover for grouse. I am pleased that the UK Conservative Government is working with moor owners in England to further improve management practices and peat condition, such as through Blanket Bog Restoration Projects. In Wales, the Welsh Peatland Action Group’s Welsh Peatlands Sustainable Management Scheme is using government funding for similar purposes.
It is also worth noting that all wild birds are protected from illegal killing by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Raptor persecution, including of hen harriers, is a national wildlife crime priority and there are strong penalties in place for offences committed against birds of prey. As such, my colleague, the Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Energy and Rural Affairs, Janet Finch-Saunders MS, will raise your concerns about enforcement with the Environment Minister at the earliest opportunity.”
Once again remote communities are brought together by this unbreakable thread .
Keepers will be giving their boots a final polish, the local youth will be anticipating pockets full of cash ( or maybe BACS payments this season), and the local landlords will be hoping to relieve them of it, whilst observing the social distancing rules.
As tomorrow is that terrible day I’ve just had a quick look at the MA and BASC websites. If GWCT is turning over a new leaf and sticking to facts, BASC and its moorland myth busting is hardly following that example. There was a time when BASC or WAGBI as it used to be looked after the interests of the ordinary folk who shot, now like all the other so-called “countryside organisations” it spouts a lot of codswallop in favour of grouse shooting and intensive grouse management. Things like” burning increases plant biodiversity”, my immediate reaction is B*****ks, but I’d like to here a reputable botanist’s opinion. Aren’t all our wildlife organisations, part of the countryside too? I know plenty of truly rural folk who hate all aspects of DGS.
Let them do their worst and we will do our best. In the end the days of the evil doers that kill our birds of prey and other wildlife and grossly abuse our moorlands are numbered. Their cruel “sport” will not survive.