Terry Pickford says ‘Ban driven grouse shooting’

    Terry Pickford, raptor worker, says ‘I definitely support a ban of driven grouse shooting because of the obvious damage this so called fieldsport continues to cause to a wide variety of protected birds of prey on red grouse moorland. These remote heather regions located in the north of England are being managed in…

Peter Egan says ‘Ban driven grouse shooting’

  Actor Peter Egan says: ‘I support a ban of driven grouse shooting because I hate all hunting and shooting of wild animals.  I’ve never seen a Hen Harrier, other than in photographs, they look like wonderful birds to me. A natural predator, they eat Red Grouse, Hen Harriers are literally being brutally wiped out…

London: a city divided on the future of grouse shooting

  Support for intensive grouse shooting, as measured by numbers of signatures on a pro-grouse shooting e-petition, is concentrated in the richer areas of central London, such as Chelsea and Fulham, and is very sparse across the rest of the capital.  In contrast, opposition to driven grouse shooting is spread across the capital’s constituencies, with…

Jeremy Deller says ‘Ban driven grouse shooting’

  Jeremy Deller, artist, says: ‘I support a ban of driven grouse shooting. I’ve never seen a Hen Harrier but I’d very much like to – why should wildlife crime continue in our National Parks and beautiful upland areas? And intensive moorland management damages peatlands which store carbon, reduce floods and provide clean water. Why…

Dominic Mitchell says ‘Ban driven grouse shooting’

Dominic Mitchell, Managing Editor of Birdwatch magazine and BirdGuides.com, says: ‘The negative impacts of driven grouse shooting have become alarmingly clear in recent years, and the end is surely nigh for this archaic pastime of shooting birds for fun and profit. Britain is home to most of the world’s heather moorlands but this unique ecosystem…

Limp response from Natural England

I’ve been at Cheltenham racecourse this week, and it was just before the last race on Wednesday that our lawyer, Tessa Gregory, phoned me to say that we had had a response from Natural England to our pre-action protocol letter. It wasn’t a very interesting response as NE said that because they were dealing with…

Guest blog – Bookends by Tim Bidie

I am a 63 year old retired British and Sultan of Oman’s Army Officer living overseas, in Oman, running a small business advisory consultancy in Muscat, helping small to medium sized British and European Companies achieve business there. I am a salt water (mainly) catch and release fly fisherman who occasionally shoots for the pot (with…

Yorkshire Dales NP takes the high ground on raptor persecution

There have been previous signs that the Yorkshire Dales National Park is ashamed of its deserved reputation as being a raptor persecution hotspot – and wants to do what it can to highlight the issue and move people towards a solution.  This is in stark contrast with the inspid response of the Peak District National…

Defra’s third draft on grouse shooting: wholly inadequate

The e-petition of Ed Hutchings, which calls for licensing of grouse shooting, has received a government response.I know that Ed is travelling at the moment but before he headed off he said he would write a guest blog here on his return in which he was expecting to comment on the government response which he…

RSPB joins the party on Judicial Reviews

The RSPB has just announced on Martin Harper’s blog that it, too, is making a legal challenge to Natural England’s licensing of brood meddling. The RSPB tipped me off on Tuesday that they had made this decision but they were waiting until they had sent off their letter before action before going public. It’s good…