Last year I wrote about the grouse shooting industry’s habit of speaking in public about what are allegedly the results of studies that suit their case but where the findings are not in the public domain. In 2016 we had Ian Botham and Matt Ridley referring to a report which has still not been published to my knowledge (see here). Then last year Botham again was in the media talking about a secret study funded by secret sponsors but carried out by researchers from Newcastle and Durham Universities (see here and here).
I wondered how the Durham and Newcastle researchers were getting on with publishing the study that Ian Botham told us all about back in 2017 so I emailed Prof Mark Whittingham as follows ‘Hi! How are you getting on with your robust analysis please? Any news? Any findings available yet?‘.
Prof Whittingham replied ‘thanks for your interest in our work. The work has been submitted to an international journal and is undergoing peer-review. We can send a copy of the article to you in due course‘.
So, no sign that the paper is accepted, and no sign of imminent publication – we must all thank Ian Botham for jumping the gun by such a wide margin.
I got back to Prof Whittingham a week ago with this:
Thank you.
It seems as though you are already commenting on the results pre-acceptance and pre-publication http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/16415501.Gamekeepers_vital_in_protecting_rare_birds__report_finds/
That’s not exactly good practice, is it? Or were you misquoted?
but I haven’t had a response yet.
Wow, this is enthralling stuff. Who would have believed peer reviewed and published research would come to the conclusions listed in the press article and said by the authors?
I wonder where the non keepered control areas were?
Still, mustn’t judge before its published, must we?
It’s tempting though, isn’t it?
The problem is, of course, that any and all species will increase if you remove all their predators. You don’t need to be a professor to work that out! It’s the basis of the Strathaan raven cull and the RSPB’s own raven cull. This is a classic case of addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Mark says he is “surprised by just how dependent these ground nesting birds are on the predator control provided by gamekeepers”. Really? Then he shouldn’t be a Professor of Applied Ecology. His “co-leader” (sic) goes on to say these upland species are declining elsewhere in England – which is exactly the problem that needs to be addressed. I entirely agree that it’s bad practice to comment in the press about the results of a yet-to-be-published peer reviewed paper. Or has it been refused, perhaps?
They are not declining at RSPB Dove Stone, in fact quite the reverse without any predator control. That would be the much more interesting experiment to take a large area of moorland and rewet and repair the damage done by intensive grouse management including allowing the grouse density to fall to more natural levels ( it may be this high biomass that in part attracts the predators) and see what happens. I suspect that biodiversity may increase and that many of the so called vulnerable species that are declining without predator control will be doing fine. Its called natural ecosystem which Grouse moors are quite clearly not.
It is quite sometime since I did bird surveys for a living but I can quite clearly recall that Golden plover were more numerous on grass moor and in areas above where heather grew. On grouse moor they seem dependent on 2-4 year old burns and small short turf areas, all that seems a bit artificial.
Grouse moors of course are currently areas where it is attempted to remove all the weasels, stoats , foxes and corvids and despite claims to the contrary most are devoid of avian predators too. Hardly a sustainable, functioning ecosystem to be proud of, indeed quite the reverse in most cases.
Sounds like Dove Stone was not the unkeepered control area, was it?
Mmmm… trying to think of a suitable other control area.. No, can’t think of a suitable one… Wonder where they chose?
Of course, we may never find out.
The study(?) may already have served it’s purpose.
I really need to be less sceptical, but I find it so hard!
I get tired of all this humbuggery about Curlews and Golden Plovers thriving on grouse moors. Does anyone really believe that these birds would be allowed to survive ten minutes if they were shown to occasionally carry ticks. Remember: Mountain Hares sometimes carry ticks, which sometimes are host to nasty viruses, which sometines infect grouse, which sometimes get ill as a result. Solution? Kill the hares.
Takes me back to the good old 1980s when raptor populations were on the up. NCC staff were working/recording bird populations on Red Grouse moors near to the reserve and were told not to get involved with any POISON found on the moors in case the land owners threw them off their ‘Scientific work’. Not quite scientific when all predators are removed including birds of prey!!
As far as Curlew SILAGE is the big killer. I have heard the screams of the adults when a cutter at speed drives through the young as if they were not there. In Spring both Curlew and Golden Plover need ‘in by’ to feed up before ever trying to breed on a moor.
The effect on upland ground nesting birds, including hen harriers, of removing upland gamekeepering in particular areas is already well researched, evidenced [edited by Mark: yes Tim, but this post is about commenting publicly on non-published research].
But many of the other comments are also a bit off topic, aren’t they, and yet they pass uncensored…….the leitmotif of a certain kind of organ.
The reference I attempted to post would be of great interest to you and many others here.
Have you read it?
‘A review of predation as a limiting factor for bird populations in mesopredator‐rich landscapes: a case study of the UK’
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/brv.12426
Tim – you tend to cut and paste the same comment over and over again and I let you get away with it too often really. Your comment was off-topic in my opinion – and that is what counts here!
That is an interesting paper. All thos Pheasantsd feeding all those predators – gamekeepers will never run out of work while they feed the problem they think they are addressing!
Thank you.
I am no fan of the commercialisation of shooting so we find some common ground there at least; but that is not all the reference says, is it?
You censored the bits that I quoted earlier because they didn’t fit your narrative.
[Mark writes (after deleting a load more words): no I deleted it because it has nothing to do with the subject of this post which is about academics commenting on papers which haven’t even, it appears, been accepted for publication let alone actually published.]
So, to be clear, it’s okay to comment on academics commenting on papers that haven’t been published so no-one can read them but not okay to comment on papers that have recently been published on the same subject that other commentators are commenting on that can be read by the other commentators …..?
Tim – your comment has to be relevant to the post on which you are commenting. It’s not very difficult to understand.
On balance, I think I prefer the organ explanation…….and the tiny number of comments compared to the number of site visits suggests that I may not be alone……
Tim – diddums.