I’m losing confidence in M&S and I guess many of you are too. They are behaving in a very shifty manner – nothing like the openness I would hitherto have expected of them. Is M&S going to sell Red Grouse in any of its stores this year? It’s not a difficult question and it can…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
No ammunition
You have to wonder whether the shooting community’s heart is in it. Maybe they are just about ready to concede defeat over driven grouse shooting. Maybe they’ve all secretly signed up to a ban on driven grouse shooting and will be happy to see the end of their pointless sport – if you agree with…
Ring Ousels on the moors
This Ring Ousel was recently photographed having been killed by a fenn trap set on a pole over a ditch on Stanhope Moor in Durham. The trap would have been set to catch stoats and weasels but of course it will catch anything that sets it off – this was an unlucky Ring Ousel. Although…
M&S AGM
Marks and Spencer – your AGM is a week tomorrow. Please can you tell us all whether you really are planning to sell Red Grouse meat in your stores this autumn or whether we ought to start a boycott of M&S goods now? M&S claims to have an industry-leading code of practice for game meat…
Win a signed copy of the new paperback Inglorious
It’s not a big prize, but it’s better than nothing! Let’s see whether you can predict the number of signatures on our e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting at my bedtime on 31 July. That will be after 10pm but might well be before midnight – although if timing is critical, because it might be…
Bradford Council gives go-ahead to Ilkley grouse shooting consultation
Bradford Council gave the go-ahead to a public consultation on the future of controversial grouse shooting on Ilkley Moor at City Hall last night, a move welcomed by campaigners. ‘There is only one way to manage moorland for grouse shooting and that’s through intensively burning away and draining precious habitat, at the cost of our…
Water companies and grouse shooting
Given what we know about the impacts of intensive grouse moor management on flood risk and water quality it would be interesting to know the state of play with United Utilities, Northumbria Water, Severn Trent Water and Yorkshire Water, on how much land they own and how much is managed for grouse shooting. Of this…
How do we get to rewilded uplands?
The simple vision of rewilded uplands painted yesterday prompted a question from a reader (Ezra Lucas) that is answered, or at least discussed, here. The question is how do we get from where we are to a more rewilded upland situation, and how do we get from a post-grouse shooting world to rewilded uplands? First,…
Slim Chance of survival of Hen Harriers
Yet another satellite-tagged Hen Harrier, this one called Chance, has disappeared – her last known location (when transmitting a strong signal) was on a south Lanarkshire grouse moor. This sounds as though it must be in the same general area where Annie (pictured above) died. Add in Highlander whose satellite tag stopped transmitting…
Rewild our trashed hills
I think anyone looking at the landscape above would be hard-pressed to call it ‘natural’. It is drained and burned – and it has tracks running all the way through it. It’s the burning that creates that patchwork of different colours – patches of heather that were burned in different years according to a…