The not-so-talented Viscount Ridley

Matt Ridley and I were friends a long time ago, but we haven’t seen each other for quite a while, and although I would gladly share a bottle of claret with Matt, we might start talking politics, climate change or grouse moors and that might spoil the mood.  I remember we had a very good…

Why driven grouse shooting is doomed

I’m quite often asked whether I really want a ban on driven grouse shooting – I do! And then I’m sometimes told that ‘It’ll never happen’ and I say ‘It will’. This is why. Let’s start with the very obvious, but rarely stated, fact that driven grouse shooting is not essential. We don’t need it….

Golden Eagles disappear too – mostly over grouse moors

RSPB press release: RSPB Scotland has issued an appeal for information following the disappearance of another young golden eagle, the eighth of this species to vanish in the same area in less than five years. The young female golden eagle, named Brodie, hatched two years ago and was fitted with a satellite transmitter shortly before…

The true face of driven grouse shooting

Intensive grouse shooting depends on wildlife crime – protected raptors have to be killed in order for the big ‘bags’ of Red Grouse to be possible. Even if a particular grouse moor does not kill protected raptors, they will benefit if other grouse moors, near and far, do so. Intensive grouse shooting is underpinned by…

IPSO annual report

You may remember that there was a lot of fuss last year over a YFTB-led error-strewn piece in the Daily Telegraph. Many of us complained to the Daily Telegraph and then on to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. With their help we got the Telegraph to correct the piece and print an apology – a…