John Armitage is an old colleague of mine from the RSPB and was formerly what then was a Regional Officer, but would now be a Regional Director, for what would then have been Northwest England but would now be about half of Northern England. He had a long and detailed involvement in the Forest of…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
Hen Harriers are tops!
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The Inglorious 12th
Intensive grouse shooting is in the news like never before: Natural England Chair, Tony Juniper, calls for vicarious liability for wildlife crimes (as did his predecessor of course – but this time it is at the beginning of his tenure and not at the end)(see Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times) Labour calls for review of…
Inglorious Debate by Gill Lewis
Gill Lewis is an author (see here and here) and spoke at yesterday’s Hen Harrier Day event (and see here). The Glorious Twelfth is the best day of the year. It just simply isn’t true to say Driven grouse shooting is underpinned by wildlife crime And that the intensive burning of the moors is damaging…
Country Life makes a lot of sense
This is a very well-written and fairly accurate editorial in Country Life magazine. You’ll see that it says many of the things that I have said myself in the blog post before this one. I’d written all of that blog before I saw the Country Life editorial so I was interested to see how similar…
Poor prospects for Red Grouse shooting – short, medium and long term
According to this round-up by Guns on Pegs this looks like being a poor year for Red Grouse shooting in most parts of the UK – the second year in a row. This looks like it is probably due to the weather – and the types of extreme weather events that haven’t helped this year…
Hen Harrier breeding season in England and the licensing issue
The RSPB has revealed, ahead of Hen Harrier Day on Sunday, that as well as the five nests producing 22 fledged young in the Forest of Bowland, RSPB staff were involved in a partnership (for the fifth year in a row) in Northumberland where this year three successful nests (out of six attempts) produced nine…
Hen Harriers in the news
The RSPB has announced that 22 Hen Harriers have fledged from five successful nests in the Forest of Bowland – all on land owned and managed by United Utilities where they own land to protect their water catchments. This land has a few days grouse shooting on it but, despite the fact that it comprises…
Werritty is coming and the Scottish government is ready and eager for action
Three regular readers of this blog (all from England actually) wrote to the Scottish government about recent cases of disappearing eagles and trapped Hen Harriers and got the same reply, part of which is produced below; The wording doesn’t make it sound like Werritty ought to be too concerned at being ambitious for change… ‘a…
River
River, a Hen Harrier from Lancashire disappeared in an area of grouse moor in the Nidderdale AONB (a notorious raptor-persecution hotspot) in North Yorkshire in November 2018. She was one of several young tagged Hen Harriers that didn’t even make it to Christmas, yet alone to their first birthday, let alone to raising eggs and…