Press release – Wild Moors and League Against Cruel Sports

Natural England restricts gamebird shooting on Thornton Moor. Fresh doubt has been cast over the future of the controversial game bird shoot on Yorkshire Water’s land at Thornton Moor after Natural England has refused permission for a significant part of the operation. The government’s habitats watchdog has said in a decision notice issued to Yorkshire…

Alternatives to driven grouse shooting

This paper is a mixture of the completely obvious and the quite important. It takes the oft-quoted suggestion by pro-grouse-shooting interests, that the only real alternative land uses to intensive driven grouse shooting are harmful agriculture and harmful afforestation, and says that isn’t true. It clearly isn’t, because what happens in terms of land use…

Hen Harriers

Hen harriers are nesting in the hills, and the persecution and the brood meddling go on. Here are three items of news, although the first of them is an ongoing item of non-news that may soon be of itself newsworthy. 1. Brood meddling legal challenge The story so far; 2018 – Natural England issue licences…

Brood meddling appeal – four weeks away

Four weeks today (and tomorrow) the Court of Appeal will be hearing my, and the RSPB’s, appeals against Natural England issuing licences to allow brood meddling of Hen Harriers ie Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 January. This process started as far as I was concerned in January 2018 and we went to court in December…