The RSPB believes that; … new laws backed up by tougher enforcement will be needed to end … vegetation burning on peatlands. These practices are entirely incompatible with the imperative to address the climate and ecological emergency and there are perfectly practical alternatives. https://community.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/b/martinharper/posts/outcome-of-the-rspb-s-review-of-gamebird-shooting-and-associated-land-management DEFRA is dragging its feet on this matter and the long-awaited England Peat Strategy…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
What the RSPB says now
The RSPB statement on gamebird shooting – click here to read it. It’s written in black and white and yet already there are some who are giving it their own interpretation. Driven grouse shooting Critically RSPB says; We will provide an annual assessment of progress and review our position within five years. Failure to deliver effective reform…
E-action or inaction?
If you took place in the Wild Justice, Hen Harrier Action, RSPB e-action then I wonder whether you have had a response from your MP yet? I know that quite a few people haven’t yet, and that is pretty poor. I think there is a preponderance of Labour MPs in the non-repliers but that’s just…
Grousers both
There really aren’t that many people involved in grouse shooting – it’s a niche hobby for the rich invented in the Victorian age and clinging on by its fingernails in the modern world. But once you get your eye in, you see them popping up everywhere in modern-day Britain. What failing government wouldn’t want to…
Buccleuch Estate draws attention to missing Hen Harrier on their land
I wouldn’t even have noticed this if it weren’t for the fuss made by Buccleuch Estate. Interesting though…
Driven grouse shooting – a mingle underpinned by wildlife crime
Coverage of the government ruling on whether Red Grouse shooting (open season 12 Aug- 10 Dec) and Pheasant shooting (open season 1 Oct – 1 Feb in England, Wales and Scotland) can go ahead has been phenomenal. I’ve had journalists phone me up today struggling to understand why their editor is wanting another piece on…
Smoke in the hills
Boris Johnson wasn’t watching Extinction – the facts last night even though his missus was, if a report, just a single sentence, in The Times today is to be believed. At the very foot of an article about how the UK would meet its net-zero target is the sentence ‘Plans to ban peat-burning appear to…
Christmas is cancelled – but the grouse must be shot
A day at the races? No. An afternoon at the football? No. Jogging with six friends? Of course not. A day on a grouse moor? Of course old boy. Rich people travelling from the towns to the uplands, drinking and shooting and then travelling home? An epidemiologist’s nightmare! The track and trace records for these…
Brood meddling of Hen Harriers – where next?
The daft government brood-meddling scheme, one of the most controversial so-called conservation actions of my time in nature conservation has always been controversial but following the recent news on Hen Harriers it is in even greater trouble. Brood -meddling (called brood management by its supporters) consists of removing young Hen Harriers from their nests, rearing…
Natural England Hen Harrier debacle
The story so far: The NE/DEFRA/Moorland Association/GWCT press release and this blog’s generous first take on it – 3 September RPUK’s take on it – 3 September A short RSPB statement – 3 September I try to make sense of things – 3 September How NE let the shooters talk nonsense because they don’t have…