The Royal Family do some strange things. The appearance in the news (see here, here, here, here) that 5-year-old Prince George had been taken to experience his first grouse shoot could not have been an accident. In 2008, it was revealed that Prince George’s great-grandmother donated money to Songbird Survival. Earlier this year the Queen…
Tag: grouse moor
Let’s get this past 2000 signatures this weekend (please)
Les Wallace’s moderate and sensible petition calling for a proper economic analysis of the costs and benefits of grouse shooting and grouse moor management is approaching 2000 signatures. It would be good to see it pass that mark this weekend – at the end of its first month. The RSPB Skydancer blog gave it some…
Hen Harrier survey, 2016, published
The headline results of this survey were released in June 2017 but now the full paper has emerged in Bird Study. Status of the Hen Harrier Circus cyaneus in the UK and Isle of Man in 2016. Simon R. Wotton, Stephen Bladwell, Wendy Mattingley, Neil G. Morris, David Raw, Marc Ruddock, Andrew Stephenson and Mark…
Our Hen Harrier data
We are going to have to wait a little while or a long while to see the results and findings of the long-awaited analysis of the Hen Harrier satellite-tagging study that you and I (as taxpayers) have funded for many years. However, it already looks as though the findings could be the dynamite to blow…
Government promoting William Powell Sporting Agency
The government website is promoting William Powell Sporting Agency through a link on their website to Snilesworth Moor. If you click on Snilesworth Moor in the above link you are taken to the William Powell website… Days of up to 250 brace can be shot here which, at £150/brace comes to a cool £37,500 for…
Mountain Hares close to extinction on NE Scotland grouse moors
That paper on Mountain Hares summed up by its title, abstract and in two graphs: Title: ‘Seven decades of mountain hare counts show severe declines where high-yield recreational game bird hunting is practised‘ by Adam Watson and Jeremy Wilson, published in Journal of Applied Ecology. Abstract Recreational hunting is widespread and can benefit nature conservation…
Mountain hares (not) on Scottish grouse moors
Do you remember this video (above) about the killing of Mountain Hares on grouse moors? And this photo of a Mountain Hare leveret caught in a trap … …and this one of a truck load of dead Mountain Hares on a Scottish grouse moor… Today the RSPB released the following press release of…
Labour: It’s time to end grouse moor practices that harm the environment
Sue Hayman, the Shadow Environment Secretary has called for an end to rotational heather burning and an independent review into the economic, environmental and wildlife impacts of driven grouse shooting. ‘Driven grouse shooting uses intensive land and wildlife management to create a false environment in which grouse flourish. Natural habitats and ecosystems are managed in…
Wuthering Moors 70 – EU infraction proceedings
The Guardian has an excellent story on burning of blanket bogs on grouse moors today. Well done to Guy Shrubsole who has done a better job than I managed in getting these details out of Defra. Read the Guardian story here. The papers released by Defra confirm what you will have heard in this blog:…
Hen Harrier weekend coming up
What a bird eh? This is a food pass in mid air where the male (above) passes prey that he has caught to the female (below) who takes it back to the nest and the chicks. What a sight! And what a brilliantly captured image by Gordon Yates. Yet these protected birds are very rarely…