The Talking Naturally podcasts are essential listening these days. I certainly enjoyed the latest one with Philip Merricks, chair of the Hawk and Owl Trust. And it was useful in jogging my memory. The whole thing was basically about brood meddling – a scheme promoted by a bunch of shooting organisations and the Hawk and…
Category: BAN DRIVEN GROUSE SHOOTING
Henry – hare today and gone tomorrow
The Jugged Hare (49 Chiswell St, London EC1Y 4SA) did not respond in any way to my email to them about what steps they take to ensure the sustainability of the production of their grouse meat, nor did they respond on the levels of lead in game meat. I’ll assume that they either don’t know…
It really is
Following yesterday’s analysis of where the signatures come from to support the e-petition on banning driven grouse shooting (see here for a mention of it in the Guardian today), here is an analysis of English constituencies separated into Conservative and Labour seats, and rural and urban seats. Conservative rural 27.5 signatures Conservative urban 18.2 …
Henry knows the Rules
On a recent trip to London, Henry (you didn’t think he’d gone away did you?) looked in to Rules restaurant. Now Rules has a very strange attitude to customer care (see here, here, here) and although there was initial friendliness from some of the waiting staff someone looking more senior started closing curtains and…
‘Class war’ against driven grouse shooting led by rural Tories
Those who oppose the excesses of field sports are often written off as ‘lefties’ and ‘townies’ who know nothing about the countryside, as opposed to ‘real country people’ who do. I’ve never seen anything to back up this oft-heard statement, and in another life I used to point out to people voicing it that the…
Data for the next post (at 1pm)
ENGLAND ALDERSHOT CON 19 ENGLAND ALDRIDGE-BROWNHILLS CON 8 ENGLAND ALTRINCHAM AND SALE WEST CON 11 ENGLAND AMBER VALLEY CON 25 ENGLAND ARUNDEL & SOUTH DOWNS CON 26 ENGLAND ASHFIELD LAB 30 ENGLAND ASHFORD CON 19 ENGLAND ASHTON UNDER LYNE LAB 10 ENGLAND AYLESBURY CON 23 ENGLAND BANBURY CON 21 ENGLAND BARKING LAB 11 ENGLAND BARNSLEY…
By-catch
I don’t say much about the animal welfare aspects of grouse moor management – they are well-covered by others and they aren’t my main gripe with the whole system of land management (does that sound hard-hearted?). But these photos (which you should find upsetting) of a Mountain Hare leveret caught in a fenn trap touched…
Keep an eye on this disease
Bulgy-eye is a growing problem it seems on grouse moors in the north of England (see here, here and here). We hear that one grouse moor in the Peak District has cancelled all its grouse shooting days for this year because of an outbreak. It’s not totally surprising is it? When you are engineering unnaturally…
Marching on
James Marchington has a go at me in something called ‘ishoot’. Apparently I am having a mid-life crisis and should have run off with my secretary on a Harley Davidson instead of campaigning about the ills of grouse shooting. Thanks for the advice James. There was a time when James wrote rather good pieces…
What some people say about Inglorious
Here are a few quotes from emails and tweets about Inglorious: ‘I’ve just finished ‘Inglorious’ and I have to say I’m impressed. You’ve written a masterpiece of clarity and persuasion.’ ‘Yes I think it WILL be a classic of conservation but only in the UK. Nowhere else would it be necessary’ ‘Yr book Inglorious…