new petition re driven grouse shooting (2 Viewers)

[Sharp Shin]

What going to happen with all the driven grouse moors? Planted with exotic conifers? Overgrazed by sheep? Are RSPB going to buy out the moors?

Fragmentation of upland moors/heaths/bogs by forestry, more intensive management of farmland and the abandonment of some lands, leading to encroachment by scrub, gorse and dense rushes, have all affected curlews. Generalist predators like foxes have increased with these changes. Fox control a must in order to reverse decline in Curlew.

This is much the same "what's going to happen if ..." question as your post #76. There were several response made directly and indirectly to your question, but here we are again and we are in danger of going around in an infinite loop. I appreciate that you have a genuine concern about the plight of the Curlew (as opposed to the PR agents of the so-called Countryside Alliance who don't know a Curlew from a Stone Curlew.) However, your Curlew fear is one (albeit important) strand of argument that (as discussion on this thread shows) remains contentious in terms of evidence and hypothetical in terms of future scenarios. The case against driven grouse shooting contains multiple sound environmental positions and arguments (which I'm not going to rehearse again here, as it would mean repeating what has been said in many previous posts to this thread). The several ill-effects of the current management of driven grouse shooting moors are well-documented now and are having an impact now. How many more pictures of trucks filled with slaughtered Mountain Hares do we need to see? How many more satellite-tagged Golden Eagles and Hen Harriers need to disappear over driven grouse moors? How many more pole traps set by game keepers do we need to discover on these moors? How many more times do the people of Hebden Bridge have to be flooded out of their houses because the grouse moors above the Calder Valley are managed in way that exacerbates rapid runoff of rain? All of this is significant reason to ask for a democratic debate over the issue of whether driven grouse shooting should have a future.

Stewart

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

Your vision seems to be grouse moors or nothing. I have more faith in the RSPB and other conservation organisations solving some of these problems, which after all extend beyond Britain and Ireland. In the UK Curlews have retreated to the uplands, but they can be encouraged to return to wider range of habitats. Most importantly farmers need to be persuaded (or paid) to adopt (or re-adopt) practices that encouraged Curlew to nest on their land (as farmers have done with other species, eg the Stone Curlew in Norfolk). British tax payers (via the EU) are currently subsidising grouse moor owners, after all.

Curlews are unlikely to survive in numbers if they are only reduced to breeding on grouse moors. Grouse moor owners are only interested in grouse not Curlews and they're certainly not interested in Hen Harriers, Peregrines, Buzzards, Kites, Golden Eagles, Goshawks etc, etc, etc.

Curlew need vast landscale management, unlike stone curlew. In Ireland (no driven Grouse moors) curlew are near extinction (<120 pairs.

My vision would be for badly needed reform of grouse moors. Vicarious liability of estate owners. Licensing of grouse moors with stipulations such as a minimum numbers of breeding Hen Harriers, curlew, lapwings. Any illegal persecution and license removed.

I would not have faith alone in eNGO solving these problems.

 

[Sharp Shin]

Well done to Mark, Chris and everyone else concerned. Talk about momentum building! We need to get an even bigger figure by Sept 20th: to lend support in the parliamentary debate, and to ensure that the figure remains well over 100,000, even if some dodgy signatures are found to be included (don't put anything passed the dirty tricks brigade on t"other side).

Well, it seems that I was correct. As soon as the total on the petition topped 100,000 some 'bot' kicked in and rapidly put 2,000 false signatures on the petition. This is what Mark Avery has said about this:

" ... last night I was watching the petition site as it passed 107,000 signatures and when I next looked it was racing away and passed 108,000 and 109,000 in very quick time. This was initially welcome but then seemed very strange." I contacted "the House of Commons Petitions Committee to alert them (at about 10pm). To cut a long story short, it seems that there was a bot automatically sending lots of signatures to the site.... This has happened before – maybe it happens a lot, but I’m glad to say the petitions site is wise to this and (don’t ask me how) they have a way of detecting it and correcting it. And so later in the night we lost about 2000 signatures and went back to close to where we were before this little episode. That’s good. We’re not looking to gain by underhand means. It is a sad situation that these things happen.... So we are all left wondering who did it. I’ll wager my £5 to your £1 that it was an opponent of our campaign rather than a proponent who was responsible. It was interesting that some trolls (I guess they are people really) raised this slur against us the other day and then a number of pro-shooting (most decidedly pro-shooting) accounts were crying foul while this happened. It was almost as though they were expecting it."

 

[ProwlingBoy]

Curlew need vast landscale management, unlike stone curlew. In Ireland (no driven Grouse moors) curlew are near extinction (<120 pairs.

My vision would be for badly needed reform of grouse moors. Vicarious liability of estate owners. Licensing of grouse moors with stipulations such as a minimum numbers of breeding Hen Harriers, curlew, lapwings. Any illegal persecution and license removed.

I would not have faith alone in eNGO solving these problems.

The Stone Curlew was simply an example of a succesful approach to persuading farmers to change their habits, not a blueprint for the Curlew.

Those are good suggestions, not my favoured approach but a reasonable compromise, I won't be entirely unhappy if that is the outcome of all this pressure. I don't believe NGOs alone can solve the problem, but I don't have much faith in moor managers. Persecution of birds of prey is already illegal but they get away with it, only the strictest of licensing and monitoring regimes has a chance of succeeding.

However, licensing grouse moors won't save the Curlew in Ireland. And on its own it won't be enought to save the Curlew in England either. Reductions in breeding numbers occurs across a wide swathe of Europe and is not linked to grouse moors but increased levels of intensive farming. Only with changes to this (via introduction or changing agricultural subsidies) will there be a sustainable future for Curlews.

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

The Stone Curlew was simply an example of a succesful approach to persuading farmers to change their habits, not a blueprint for the Curlew.

Those are good suggestions, not my favoured approach but a reasonable compromise, I won't be entirely unhappy if that is the outcome of all this pressure. I don't believe NGOs alone can solve the problem, but I don't have much faith in moor managers. Persecution of birds of prey is already illegal but they get away with it, only the strictest of licensing and monitoring regimes has a chance of succeeding.

However, licensing grouse moors won't save the Curlew in Ireland. And on its own it won't be enought to save the Curlew in England either. Reductions in breeding numbers occurs across a wide swathe of Europe and are not linked to grouse moors but increased levels of intensive farming. Only with changes to this (via introduction or changing agricultural subsidies) will there be a sustainable future for Curlews.

Ban grouse moors and with resultant lack of management (which is broadly favourable for breeding waders) curlew numbers will plummet even further. Agreed intensive agriculture a huge problem for curlew.

 

[King Edward]

What going to happen with all the driven grouse moors? Planted with exotic conifers? Overgrazed by sheep? Are RSPB going to buy out the moors?

Fragmentation of upland moors/heaths/bogs by forestry, more intensive management of farmland and the abandonment of some lands, leading to encroachment by scrub, gorse and dense rushes, have all affected curlews. Generalist predators like foxes have increased with these changes. Fox control a must in order to reverse decline in Curlew.

I appreciate your concern for the Curlew, but at the end of day it is just one species. It can't be right that the welfare of this single species (plus a handful of other waders etc.) should trump all other considerations when it comes to upland wildlife. There are 1000s of species that live (or ought to live) in the British uplands, and focusing excessively on Curlews and other waders gives a distorted perspective on upland biodiversity.

This is especially the case given the extent to which pro-grouse shooting propaganda focuses on Curlew/wader numbers in order to justify the supposed conservation benefits of moorland management and predator control. The shooting interests are essentially trying to frame the debate to imply that the only upland species that matter are those which (supposedly or actually) do well under grouse moor management.

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

I appreciate your concern for the Curlew, but at the end of day it is just one species. It can't be right that the welfare of this single species (plus a handful of other waders etc.) should trump all other considerations when it comes to upland wildlife. There are 1000s of species that live (or ought to live) in the British uplands, and focusing excessively on Curlews and other waders gives a distorted perspective on upland biodiversity.

This is especially the case given the extent to which pro-grouse shooting propaganda focuses on Curlew/wader numbers in order to justify the supposed conservation benefits of moorland management and predator control. The shooting interests are essentially trying to frame the debate to imply that the only upland species that matter are those which (supposedly or actually) do well under grouse moor management.

UK holds 17-25% of world's population of curlew. It is crucial that they are protected and if that means driven grouse moors then I could live with that (with stringent licensing etc).

 

[Adam W]

I appreciate your concern for the Curlew, but at the end of day it is just one species. It can't be right that the welfare of this single species (plus a handful of other waders etc.) should trump all other considerations when it comes to upland wildlife. There are 1000s of species that live (or ought to live) in the British uplands, and focusing excessively on Curlews and other waders gives a distorted perspective on upland biodiversity.

This is especially the case given the extent to which pro-grouse shooting propaganda focuses on Curlew/wader numbers in order to justify the supposed conservation benefits of moorland management and predator control. The shooting interests are essentially trying to frame the debate to imply that the only upland species that matter are those which (supposedly or actually) do well under grouse moor management.

I feel that's a weak argument and can't help feeling that you are guilty of doing the very thing you are complaining about.
Obviously anyone trying to make a pro Grouse shooting argument is going to focus on positives such as waders and neglect negatives such as Hen Harriers but aren't you doing the same by dismissing Curlews and ''a few other Waders'' to focus on Raptors? Couldn't I just as easily say Hen harriers are only one species(plus a few other raptors) so why focus on them what about all the Waders and Gamebirds that benefit?

An important point to remember which i think I mentioned earlier is that many of the species that suffer due to grouse shooting don't suffer from the very idea of Grouse shooting and how the land is managed for that purpose in fact they would benefit very much from a habitat rich on prey and low in predators the root cause of the problem is illegal persecution not how the land is managed.
lets be honest despite all the other issues such as flooding that have been dragged up to try and strengthen this campaign we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this now if Raptor persecution didn't exist that's where the real problem lies and it's people breaking the law and getting away with it that causes that problem not the very concept of driven Grouse shooting or how the land is managed for that purpose.

The way I see it is if(yes I know that's a massive if at this moment in time) we had no Raptor persecution in Grouse shooting we'd then have a situation where we have Grouse moors with their thriving populations of Waders and Gamebirds but also Raptors especially Hen Harriers.
If however we ban driven Grouse shooting we loose the positive impacts on waders, Black Grouse etc but we also loose the perfect habitat for a variety of raptors most notably Hen Harriers.
Yes I'm sure in the short term we might see an increase in Raptors but we'd see a decrease in many other species and in the long term I fail to see how it could be positive for any species apart from maybe Foxes and Corvids but they are hardly of major conservation concern.
My view is that its best to keep driven Grouse shooting for it's positives and keep fighting and chipping away at the negatives to someday hopefully get somewhere near the ideal situation rather than ban it and except that the least worst of the two currently available choices is the best it will ever get.
Do I honestly believe we'll ever get to the perfect situation? Well no of course not but I do believe we've got a better chance of getting nearer it by keeping Grouse shooting and retaining the hope and fighting chance than just giving up and excepting that second best is as good as it can get.

 

[mudman]

I appreciate your concern for the Curlew, but at the end of day it is just one species. It can't be right that the welfare of this single species should trump all other considerations when it comes to upland wildlife

And so is the Hen Harrier.

 

[King Edward]

I feel that's a weak argument and can't help feeling that you are guilty of doing the very thing you are complaining about.
Obviously anyone trying to make a pro Grouse shooting argument is going to focus on positives such as waders and neglect negatives such as Hen Harriers but aren't you doing the same by dismissing Curlews and ''a few other Waders'' to focus on Raptors? Couldn't I just as easily say Hen harriers are only one species(plus a few other raptors) so why focus on them what about all the Waders and Gamebirds that benefit?

If you're going to quote my post please do me the favour of responding to it and not putting words into my mouth. I didn't even mention Hen Harriers or raptors. The issue with Hen Harriers is not that the British uplands should be managed exclusively to benefit them, but that driven grouse shooting as it currently exists is dependent on systemic criminality. My post was not about illegal persecution, but about the value system which sees upland wildlife as being all about moorland and a small number of iconic species, and is is blind to the other habitats and species which should also be present.

An important point to remember which i think I mentioned earlier is that many of the species that suffer due to grouse shooting don't suffer from the very idea of Grouse shooting and how the land is managed for that purpose in fact they would benefit very much from a habitat rich on prey and low in predators the root cause of the problem is illegal persecution not how the land is managed.

This is where I take a fundamentally different view. UK native species have evolved to live in an environment with predators, and there is no reason to think that a sustainable balanced ecosystem can only be maintained by systematically persecuting certain native species (especially when those species happen to be, by an amazing coincidence, long standing targets for legal and illegal persecution by shooting interests).

lets be honest despite all the other issues such as flooding that have been dragged up to try and strengthen this campaign we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this now if Raptor persecution didn't exist that's where the real problem lies and it's people breaking the law and getting away with it that causes that problem not the very concept of driven Grouse shooting or how the land is managed for that purpose.

I’m sorry but this is a load of nonsense. Of course birders are generally going to be particularly concerned about illegal raptor persecution, but the other issues are nonetheless important. When it comes to flooding it’s not just about a few high profile cases, but the whole way catchments are managed at a landscape scale which has massive knock-on impacts on water flow and quality far downstream. Drainage, burning, (over)grazing and the persecution of trees & shrubs are serious environmental issues.

The way I see it is if(yes I know that's a massive if at this moment in time) we had no Raptor persecution in Grouse shooting we'd then have a situation where we have Grouse moors with their thriving populations of Waders and Gamebirds but also Raptors especially Hen Harriers.
If however we ban driven Grouse shooting we loose the positive impacts on waders, Black Grouse etc but we also loose the perfect habitat for a variety of raptors most notably Hen Harriers.

I fail to see the benefit of ‘perfect habitat’ for a species when the species in question is unable to occupy the area due to intensive persecution. You seem totally unaware that the main problem for Hen Harriers and Golden Eagles is the fact that the ‘perfect habitat’ on grouse moors sucks in individuals from far and wide, only to be illegal killed, preventing less attractive but still suitable habitat elsewhere from being colonised.

 

[King Edward]

And so is the Hen Harrier.

What’s your point? See my reply to Adam W.

 

[Boom]

In the meantime, the Hen Harrier will be extinct as a breeding species.
Whilst in theory, you make a lot of sense Adam, the reality is that this iconic species is critically endangered in England, I fear the time for "chipping away" has gone. If we are serious about this, something drastic has to be done as clearly, in the case of Hen Harriers, previous measures have failed catastrophically.
The situation is too severe for "someday" get near an ideal situation, that day will be too late for Hen Harriers.
Mudman, it is one species, it is highlighted because of the fact that it's numbers are shockingly small, the reality is all birds of prey are at risk of these criminals.
I don't accept for one minute that these people have purposefully created these Wader Oasis' intentionally, I'm sure this supposed expert knowledge of land management could be shared with others if Wader conservation was a priority.

 

[rosbifs]

I think the time for stays of execution is gone. The law has been in place for 60 years and how many 'landowners' have been convicted because of the criminal activity of their employees - the law doesn't exist in England but it is crazy that its allright to kill anything that threatens a bird that is then to be shot. The gamekeepers are employed on the basis that they erradicate anything that moves - they are given the remit to commit the offences they want provided they don't get caught - mountain hares because they like the same food, foxes etc; because they eat the young and ofcourse the birds of prey. It was, sort of, proven that the 'sport' is not sustainable without the wholesale removal of all predators which again is crazy - just breed the things and release them on August the 11th!! But no they want to move the HH offsite and feed them unnaturaly.

I'm not against hunting but driven grouse does not count as hunting for me. The sport was developed because it was easier than walking and killing your prey (which I consider to be hunting). Its like a trout fisherman putting up a net in a river and then sending 20 gillies upstream to thrash around in the water - then claiming he'd caught 100 trout in his net - how cunning!

No seriously I think enough chances have been given...

 

[Sharp Shin]

Adam says "My view is that its best to keep driven Grouse shooting for it's positives and keep fighting and chipping away at the negatives to someday hopefully get somewhere near the ideal situation rather than ban it ..."

I think that someone coming to this debate cold would think that there is some sense in this statement. Banning driven grouse shooting as a first step, surely not. But of course it isn't a first step. As the extended chronology listed in Mark Avery's book shows, there has been a long history of appeals to good practice, joint working projects, and the like (and Mark Avery was involved in much of this work during his post at the RSPB). And has this "chipping away at the negatives" resulted in any movement in a positive direction. I'm afraid not (as evidenced in the many examples given in this thread). Indeed, the recent spate of Hen Harriers and Golden Eagles 'disappearing' over driven grouse moors, indicates that it may have got worse. The RSPB's constitution requires that it attempts to work with a range of environmental stakeholders and interest groups, but after engaging with the most recent Defra joint working plan, it had to withdraw due to a lack of engagement by the other parties. Again, there was no "chipping away at the negatives".

The issue is that there a clear conflict of interests between the management of driven grouse moors, on the one hand, and several other environmental and conservation concerns, on the other hand (again, as detailed in the many posts on this thread). One side wants huge swathes of land to be managed for the mass rearing of one species, so that that species can then be shot in vast numbers for profit. It does not make business sense to allow anything to lessen this profit. The business plan is to manage the land for a narrow 'stream' of profit, not to manage it for wider environmental and conservation 'public goods'. The two sides in this 'conflict' are evidentially incompatible and something has got to give way on one side. And, you'll know what side I think will, in the long run, have to be made to give way (because there has been so sign so far that it will do so voluntarily).

Stewart

 

[Mickr]

We don't have to lose curlews or other waders breeding grounds, deflect some of the money that goes to farmers to actually produce uplands which aren't managed to allow people to kill for fun. Already £billions go to farmers, take some of that from them and spend the money to improve the environment. As a species we take far too much from the environment and we need to give something back, now more than ever.

Banning driven grouse shooting doesn't have to mean that we trash the moors, it should mean they are not managed for one species at a cost to all others that are seen as a threat.

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

. The gamekeepers are employed on the basis that they erradicate anything that moves - they are given the remit to commit the offences they want provided they don't get caught - mountain hares because they like the same food, foxes etc; because they eat the young and ofcourse the birds of prey. It was, sort of, proven that the 'sport' is not sustainable without the wholesale removal of all predators which again is crazy - just breed the things and release them on August the 11th!! But no they want to move the HH offsite and feed them unnaturaly.

Mountain hares are culled because they can transmit louping ill (via tick vector) to Red grouse. Grouse can't be reared like Pheasant so unfortunately cannot release them on August 11th.
IMO Shooting estates should have a minimum number of Hen Harriers on their estates (calculated by independent ecologists). Brood management for surplus pairs

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

We don't have to lose curlews or other waders breeding grounds, deflect some of the money that goes to farmers to actually produce uplands which aren't managed to allow people to kill for fun. Already £billions go to farmers, take some of that from them and spend the money to improve the environment. As a species we take far too much from the environment and we need to give something back, now more than ever.

Banning driven grouse shooting doesn't have to mean that we trash the moors, it should mean they are not managed for one species at a cost to all others that are seen as a threat.

Would be great to get some more of (vast) subsidies diverted to effective results based agri-environmental schemes.

 

[Mayo Corncrake]

In upland areas, there needs to be a diversity of land use: some farming; access areas for walking, rock-climbing, and the like; some areas for re-wilding nature projects (think mixed forest and a reintroduction of beavers); some areas managed to prevent adverse climate change (no more draining of blanket bogs); and so on. .

Great plans in ideal world, but are Estate owners likely to donate their lands for such projects. I know of only one person who uses all their personal land for conservation

 

[John Cantelo]

We don't have to lose curlews or other waders breeding grounds, deflect some of the money that goes to farmers to actually produce uplands which aren't managed to allow people to kill for fun. Already £billions go to farmers, take some of that from them and spend the money to improve the environment. As a species we take far too much from the environment and we need to give something back, now more than ever.

Banning driven grouse shooting doesn't have to mean that we trash the moors, it should mean they are not managed for one species at a cost to all others that are seen as a threat.

Perhaps we could simply divert the public subsidy of £56 per hectare that mega wealthy grouse moor owners are given towards conservation measure to encourage Curlews etc. Seems a much better thing to do with public money.

 

[Sharp Shin]

Great plans in ideal world, but are Estate owners likely to donate their lands for such projects. I know of only one person who uses all their personal land for conservation

You've rather selectively cropped my response to your statement that if we got rid of driven grouse shooting the only alternatives would be conifer forests and sheep grazing. Those are not the areas in which the economy is heading or the values of agencies such as the Forestry Commission (or whatever it's now called) are leading. 'Product development', 'diversification', 'broadening portfolios' - this is the language of all businesses today, including farming. I have 'Jimmy's Farm' up the road from me, and do you think he relies on the old tradional ways? A few months ago, I stayed on a farm in Norfolk that had accommodation and all manner of local 'countryside atractions'. What's the name of that farm in mid-Wales that has made Red Kites part of its business? On the demand side, there no shortage of folk who would visit, stay on, work on and support 'estates' that present opportunities to walk in, play in, bird-watch in, Beaver-watch in, volunteer in, and so on. There's a huge shop in my town called 'Go Outdoors'. I took my boy to Minsmere last week, and it was full of families enjoying an area where consevation takes place well. There you go, but I would expect some proper regulation and licensing for all this.

You know, I've no concrete or set idea of what the precise future alternative use for this land will be, but I do know that there are viable alternatives and I do know that all of these alternatives are better than what we have at the moment. And, I should add, the future management of these upland ares must include the preservation (or even the re-introduction) of native preditors. As has been said here, in a much more articulate way than I can muster, the thought of developing a sustainable bio-diverse ecology without the inclusion of native preditors is surely against all scientific wisdom.

As I pointed out in my post from which you select a quote, both George Monbiot and Mark Avery have adressed your 'what about if ..' question. They write much better than me, so I recommend a good read there to hep assiage your fears.

Stewart