Just as Defra did not submit written evidence to the inquiry into driven grouse shooting – nor did Natural England. The fact that NE have been spending our taxpayers’ money on a detailed study of ranging behaviour and mortality of Hen Harriers since 2002 has not led them to think that they might have anything…
Category: Grouse and harriers
Quick thoughts from the Sheffield conference
I spent Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday morning with a disparate bunch of supporters and opponents to banning driven grouse shooting at the Sheffield conference on raptors, peatlands and the uplands. It was valuable in all sorts of ways, not least in meeting some blog readers and supporters whom I rarely see (for some of…
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Shooting (and Conservation)
I’ve been wondering which members of parliament are likely to speak in favour of driven grouse shooting in the debate on the subject. Their constituents might well want to give them some Firm Briefing on the facts of the matter and to give them the views of the people who elected them. The All-Party Parliamentary…
Review of English sat tag data narrowed to zero species
They do things differently in Scotland – quite often better (but you’d never know from the rubbish that the SNP MPs are sending their constituents). Scotland has vicarious liability – denied to the English by a grouse-moor-owning Defra minister. Scotland is carrying out a review of losses of satellite-tagged raptors to investigate how many of…
More wearisome science
Remember according to the not-so-talented Viscount Ridley ‘Hen harriers, which are ground-nesting birds vulnerable to foxes, are thriving in Scotland … in places where gamekeepers control fox numbers.‘ and grouse-shooter Charles Moore, ‘…most such accusations about the killing of hen harriers are false’ and ‘hen harriers do better on kept moors than on unkept ones…‘. Well,…