There will be lots of interest in tomorrow’s online RSPB AGM. Is the RSPB going bust? Who gets the RSPB Medal (see this blog at 1130am tomorrow to find that out). What is the RSPB new policy on gamebird shooting?
I think the RSPB has handled the latter matter slightly wrongly judging from the number of journalists ringing me up after they have been lobbied by shooting groups. It is very clear that the shooters actually know more about what might be announced tomorrow than anyone else; RSPB members, the vast majority of RSPB staff and those organisations who oppose gamebird shooting.
The RSPB’s position on gamebird shooting is set out in its Royal Charter where in section 4, quite prominently, you will find the following words:
The Society shall take no part in the question of the killing of game birds and legitimate sport of that character except when such practices have an impact on the Objects.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/documents/abouttherspb/charter-and-statutes-feb-19-and-bye-laws-march-19.pdf
Ten years ago I could trot that out pretty much word for word and I still can as it is fixed in my mind. What we thought that it meant was that the RSPB would not enter into discussions of the moral rights and wrongs of gamebird shooting per se, but could get stuck in to anything associated with shooting (eg wildlife crime, poisonous lead shot, climate- and habitat-damaging burning and drainage) that affected species and habitats and the broader environment.
In her rather brilliant book, Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, Tessa Boase explained how this rather eye-catching phrase came to be inserted so prominently into the RSPB Royal Charter. See this passage from my review of Tessa’s book:
I was absolutely fascinated to learn that the question was raised at the SPB’s 1896 AGM about the apparent disconnect between opposing the killing of birds for the plumage trade and the lack of action against shooting of gamebirds. The SPB constitution was ‘clarified’ after that to reflect that the attitude of the SPB was strictly neutral on the question of killing of game birds, and so it remains today (at least so far as the ethics of that subject is concerned) which is why the RSPB, over a century later, would find it difficult (although not impossible) to support a ban of driven grouse (or any other form of gamebird) shooting.
https://markavery.info/2018/05/13/bank-holiday-monday-book-review-mrs-pankhurts-purple-feather-by-tessa-boase/
So this issue goes back well over a century and remains contentious.
Last year the RSPB announced a review of these matters and tomorrow we will discover the results of that review (except the shooters seem to think they know already).
The RSPB published seven draft principles earlier this year and invitd comments on them. Have a look at them, and Wild Justice’s response to the consultation here.
So, tomorrow, we will see. Will Etta Lemon be spinning in her grave?
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Go for a complete ban on driven grouse shooting and they will have my restored membership by the evening.
Throw in demands for a ban on lead, a ban on large scale release of foreign species for shooting, etc. and I’ll add an extra donation for each one.
What it has always meant is that if the RSPB gets in the way of the Royals and their associated upper crust parasites desire to blast away at wildlife, then they become the SPB the very next day. The RSPB has always prioritised the R over the B.
Random22 – you do talk nonsense sometimes. That is just made up.
Hope that the RSPB membership is listened too in comparison to any vested interests or stakeholders that appear to have more importance or influence, in what should simply have involved the fee paying membership. ‘Just a thought’
There are certainly some issues to be sorted. Firstly the RSPB constitution which says it should be neutral on the killing of gams birds is now over a hundred years old. Times and attitudes have changed a lot since then which was the back end of the Victorian age. Now days I am sure most people would find it absolutely abhorrent to watch lots of wild birds being mowed down for fun. Many killed but many also lying on the ground injured and in agony. So it is time to remove this Victorian restriction.
Secondly the red grouse is, as I understand it, is now recognised as a separate species from the willow grouse and therefore it is a bird only native to. the U.K. It should be no longer treated as a game bird.
Lastly what does the wording “except when the activity has an Impact on the objects ”mean? The shooting of our wild birds definitely has an impact on the “objects”
So it seems there is a lot to sort out here and plenty of room for the RSPB to take a tough line.
I may have missed the latest taxonomic revision but, if not, i believe that the situation with the specific status of red grouse is the opposite of what you say. It was formerly considered to be a species endemic to Britain, Lagopus scoticus, but is now considered to be just a sub-species of the willow grouse Lagopus lagopus.
Interestingly the grouse shooting lobby have in the past proposed the supposed uniqueness of the British red grouse as a justification for their intensive management of the moors in its favour (at least until 12th August). This of course was self-serving nonsense – although we would all wish a healthy population of red grouse to persist in the UK (just as for any wild bird species), there is no conservation argument justifying the need for the kind of red grouse densities required by the sporting estates to satisfy their shooting clients, whatever its taxonomic status.
Would be interesting to know why the founders decided that. Did they think it would be too contentious? That it was too entrenched to oppose? That it would stop many of the people they wanted to attract supporting them? Those things are presumably more likely than that the founders took part in game bird shooting. Most of them would have been members of a social group which participated in those things – but then their social groups probably put feathers in their hats too.
m parry – if interested then read the aforementioned (and very good) book by Tessa Boase
And quite frankly, what do the shooting organisations expect? An organisation founded for bird welfare & conservation is bound to end up opposing the shooting of birds just for a sick kind of fun. It’s a glaring anomaly that it hasn’t before.
m parry – well, it hasn’t yet either. Are you a member by the way?
Yes, I’m a member. And thanks for the recommend of the book.
As an RSPB member of many years standing, they need to come out with a statement about game bird shooting that is essentially “Gloves Off” Opposed to DGS for a whole host of reasons to do with persecution, a huge biodiversity deficit in our uplands ( not all of DGS making, think sheep!), and burning. Opposed to large scale Pheasant and RLP releases, which have become obscene in their volume and opposed to the use of lead shot. Also a policy where the pro-shooting organisations are treated and their sympathisers are treated as part of the problem and not the solution, these people are not and never have been friends.
Sounds like Etta Lemon would be turning in her grave at the sight of a woman president and woman as chief exec!