I’ve written quite a lot over the last few weeks about driven grouse shooting and why I want to see it banned in England. I’ve had lots of responses too – on this blog as comments, on Twitter, on Facebook, by e-mail and face to face. Here’s a summary of what I think are the…
Tag: grouse moor
Is this pretty?
Heather burning is vitally important to grouse shooting. Burning the heather on a rotational basis, every few years, creates a pattern of young and older heather. The younger heather produces green vegetation that is eaten by Red Grouse whereas older heather provides more nesting cover. This image from talented wildlife photographer Peter Cairns shows…
A bit of a round up – all good news
Virunga – good news here! And well done! to WWF. Hen Harriers in Bowland – some good news here – there are three pairs of Hen Harrier in England this year – that’s just under 1% of the number that there could be judging by the suitable habitat available. Hen Harriers on Springwatch – did…
Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill
Please sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting and make it your e-petition too
Arguments to make you pause before signing this e-petition
I’d like you to sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in England please. However, I’m not going to make out that all grouse moor owners, managers or gamekeepers are evil and hateful. I quite like quite a few of them, personally. I can’t understand what they get out of shooting Red Grouse but…
10 reasons not to sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting
My e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting has attracted quite a few signatures – I don’t know exactly how many, by now, as this blog was written on Tuesday and I have been travelling in the north of England and Wales since then… How mysterious…. [actually even the north of England has wifi these days…
Everyone loves the Hen Harrier – don’t they?
The science suggests that there should be a lot more Hen Harriers in the UK uplands than there are at the moment. Let’s just take Scotland for the moment. The science says there should be c1650 pairs (I have taken the central point of an estimate and then rounded it) in Scotland on the basis…
Ten reasons why you should sign an e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting in England
Ten reasons why you should sign my e-petition to ban driven grouse shooting. You are a vegetarian or vegan (see here for one point of view) You are against wild birds being used as ‘living targets’ for ‘sport’ You are against the artificially very high densities of Red Grouse that are produced for grouse-shooting…
The Hen Harrier – some biology
There is a lot of nonsense talked about the Hen Harrier -and about everything else in the world I guess. Let’s hope I am not going to add to it. Here’s my take on the biology of the bird. What they eat: Hen Harriers eat lots of things. The Langholm study showed that the density…
An open letter to the RSPB Chairman Professor Steve Ormerod
Dear Steve Hi! Happy 60th anniversary of the Protection of Birds Act! It must be around now that you are heading off to Conservation Committee to discuss the RSPB’s conservation work. And then, in July, there will be a Council meeting, I guess, unless things have changed a lot in the last three years (which…