I’ll blog more about this but it’s difficult not to giggle all the time as I write about it. To see, as I have, the feeble letter from the Marquess of Downshire to DEFRA, dated 18 September 2019, is rather amusing. I’m surprised the letter didn’t include the phrase ‘Don’t you know who I am?’….
Tag: grouse shooting
News round up
Here are a few things that caught my eye recently, and I will be writing more about some of them next week: Wild Justice forces DEFRA to act on non-native gamebirds – see DEFRA announcement. I wouldn’t say that this was too little too late, but it is late and it isn’t clear whether it…
Are things getting better on raptor persecution?
Are things getting better – is raptor persecution decreasing? Let’s start from the basics. Killing birds of prey is illegal, and has been since 1954 (and partly before that). Most killing of birds of prey is carried out by people with jobs in the game management industries where birds of prey are seen, partly rightly,…
Shuffling
Well, well, well. Off goes the Chancellor saying that no self-respecting minister would allow the PM to dictate who his aids should be, which must make Rishi Sunak lacking in self respect. It is very broad-minded of Johnson to replace an alumnus of Downend Comprehensive with a Wykhamist though. Rishi Sunak, as MP for Richmond,…
Grouse moor owner paid for PM’s holiday on Mustique – or maybe he didn’t
Whether or not David Ross of Carphone Warehouse fame did or didn’t pay for the PM’s £15,000 Christmas break (see here, here, here) there’s no getting away from the closeness of the grouse shooters to the government. This blog has written before about David Ross, his shooting lodge in the North York Moors and the…
Banning driven grouse shooting – we are in the end game
While we wait for the Petitions Committee to be formed anew after the general election, and then have a meeting, and then decide on when to debate this matter, the world must look like a hostile place for the grouse shooting industry. The recent floods point again to land use in the uplands needing to…
Press release from Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire Moors
Government urged to deliver moorland burning ban following Yorkshire floodsEnvironment campaigners are warning that Yorkshire’s moors are no longer acting as effective flood barriers for the region following decades of burning for grouse shooting. It comes as Yorkshire counts the cost of the third major floods to have hit the region in seven months, with…
RSPB press release
A rare, protected bird of prey has been illegally poisoned near Drumconrath in County Meath, Ireland. Mary hatched in the summer of 2019 from a nest on the Isle of Man. Before she left her nest, she was fitted with a lightweight satellite tracking device as part of the EU Hen Harrier LIFE project, allowing…
Joke response to new gull licensing regime from Moorland Association
Following their joke response to the Committee on Climate Change’s report on land use the Moorland Association has issued another joke response today – this time to the new licensing regime of lethal control of gulls from Natural England. Even the thickest of journalists surely won’t quote the Moorland Association’s contention that their members, notably…
Joke response to Committee on Climate Change report from Moorland Association
Last week the Moorland Association released a joke response to the Climate Change Committee report on land use which recommended an end to rotational burning on peatlands this year. Now you wouldn’t think that would be exactly what the Moorland Association would want but they still have the brass neck to write; The Moorland Association…