RSPB getting tough?

• it was a deeply frustrating debate – especially to the 123,000 that called for a ban and of course those seeking reform. Our initial reaction tried to pick out some positives, but that was a real challenge. Clearly there is widespread opposition from within the driven grouse shooting community to any real reform.
• …if pressure for reform remains then the quality of the parliamentary debate will inevitably improve as people won’t be able to brazenly ignore the facts like some did on Monday.
• When more crimes get into the public domain it will be harder for MPs to turn a blind eye.
• …this week, we are raising awareness of the fate of the hen harrier Rowan, found dead in Cumbria in October, and which appears to have been shot. The fate of this bird graphically illustrates that illegal killing of hen harriers is ongoing, contrary to the impression given by some MPs in the Westminster Hall debate.
• …we remain appalled by the environmental condition of the uplands and the ongoing illegal killing of birds of prey

• Sitting at the debate, I already knew the nature of Rowan’s recent demise and wondered whether Thérèse Coffey, present as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was also aware. Against that, I listened with some disbelief at the nature of the debate that unfolded. To be frank, I wasn’t hopeful for a great deal to come out from the process. However, I thought at least this was an opportunity for some serious environmental concerns to be properly aired. Hopefully this would lead to a commitment from the government to at least look at options to tackle the pernicious problem of raptor persecution and a range of others environmental problems in our uplands.
• At the end of the debate Therese Coffey read out a prepared statement that basically it would be business as usual. We know what has gone before is not working, so I simply don’t understand this response. With just three pairs of hen harriers breeding in England this year, just how bad do things have to get? I do wonder how history will look back on the quality of this debate and whether future society will judge us for failing to take meaningful action.
• …despite raptor persecution becoming one of the government UK wildlife crime priorities in 2009, I have not seen any meaningful improvement in the levels of enforcement.
• Compared with elsewhere in Europe and North America, game shooting in the UK is almost uniquely unregulated even though it is far more intensive in nature than almost anywhere else. To the best of my knowledge, no other industry in the UK has to rely on killing rare protected birds. Driven grouse moor management should be no different and simply has to adapt its business model to a more sustainable form of land management to conform to modern day conservation and the wishes of wider society.
• Unless those in charge are held to account, I believe there is absolutely no chance of a significant change in some of the serious environmental problems associated with grouse moor management. Scotland has made some progress with the introduction of vicarious liability and this should be put in place across the rest of the UK as soon as possible.
• As highlighted at Westminster Hall, it seems economics plays a very large part in this debate. However, the government do not appear to have done the sums to assess how the benefits from employment and income generation to local communities from grouse shooting compare with counteracting the cost of any environmental damage, loss of wildlife tourism opportunities or the huge sums of agricultural subsides paid into the uplands.
• Whilst I will not be at the RSPB a quarter of a century from now, I would hope to still be here and to have witnessed a real change in the condition of our uplands and for the shame of raptor persecution to finally end. However, for these hopes to become a reality I believe this government needs to start taking take meaningful action now, and not just watch from the sidelines hoping it will all sort itself out.

Evidence to Westminster and Scottish Parliament on driven grouse shooting – comment.

Woodpigeon bait and poisoned buzzard, still warm, found on Glenogil Estate, a driven grouse moor in Angus, in 2011.

It’s been an interesting few days reading and listening to responses to Mark Avery’s proposed ban on driven grouse shooting and the proposal by Scottish Raptor Study Groups (SRSG) to licence game shooting. Many of the responses in favour of either of these proposals are compelling, though I have not yet seen an argument against that convinces me Mark or SRSG are on the wrong track.
I think the most knowledgeable and convincing argument to ban driven grouse shooting comes from Guy Shorrock. Guy is a senior investigations officer with RSPB and his evidence is based on many years of experience in the field.
Guy writes: ‘The National Crime Agency (NCA) define organised crime as ‘serious crime planned, coordinated and conducted by people working together on a continuing basis. Their motivation is often, but not always, financial gain. Organised criminals working together for a particular criminal activity or activities are called an organised crime group’.  The current levels of raptor persecution on driven grouse moor estates should be classed as organised crime.’  Logan Steele, the spokesperson for SRSG said to the Scottish committee when giving his evidence, driven grouse shooting is a ‘business underpinned by criminality’.
Both are absolutely correct. The killing, not just of birds of prey but of protected mammals such as badgers and otters, is most certainly in many cases organised crime. This criminality increases the profits of the estates through the elimination of factors that would have a negative impact on grouse. The extent is difficult to prove but I have no doubts that if anyone involved in the management of a driven grouse moor is eventually charged the police would also be considering an investigation using proceeds of crime legislation.
Guy also says: ‘I am aware of one individual who has been involved in grouse moor management for many years.  Based on a huge amount of information, I believe this individual is one of the very top wildlife criminals in the UK, and managing gamekeepers who are responsible for the death of literally thousands of raptors and other protected wildlife during the last two decades or more.  However, the reality is that this individual has never even been in a police station for an interview let alone anywhere near a court. It seems this individual, and much of the industry they are part of, consider, and with good reason, that they are pretty much untouchable.’
I can go one better: I am aware of two such individuals, no doubt one of them being the same person to which Guy alludes. Over the years I have also described them as the top wildlife criminals in the UK. In their operations in Scotland and the north of England their methods, both immoral and illegal, have probably been the principal factor in causing these two petitions to appear before the Westminster and the Scottish parliaments. I have heard their methods praised by many landowners, gamekeepers and shooting organisations for the past decade, but at the same time I have listened to several of their former employees who have given me the full and disgusting story, chapter and verse but, apart from one, were too frightened to stand up in court and be counted. In more recent years the tide has started to turn as the negative publicity of the criminality and the public anger were recognised by the more sensible folks involved in the grouse industry.
Had more intelligence been passed to the police that would have been a good start. Had much more support been given to the gamekeepers who had been (or were being) encouraged or directed to carry out criminal acts, they could have provided evidence (as opposed to intelligence) in the form of witness statements or recovery of illegal items and a case could have been submitted for prosecution. This could have been achievable by concerted action by the various shooting and land-owning organisations that have pretty much buried their collective heads in the sand for years, with no acknowledgement and half-hearted condemnation of what is taking place. I am sure that the extent of the criminality, if proved, would have meant a considerable jail sentence.
It is still not too late for this to happen. It would make my day!

Gems from the written evidence 22 – Hugh Webster

• I firmly believe that the law should be changed to specifically ban driven red grouse shooting. I am aware that some conservationists would settle for a licensing system as a compromise, but this tempting option fails to address the underlying incontrovertible fact that driven grouse shooting is fundamentally reliant on bird of prey persecution. It is an either or situation.
• …the grouse industry is always keen to point to the curlews, lapwings and golden plovers that undeniably benefit from their land management, as if an unnatural abundance of a few species of wildfowl should offset an entire ecosystem laid to waste. Can you imagine a gamekeeper visiting the Serengeti and advising the park wardens there: “Very nice, but what you want to do is kill off all your predators, hunt down all the wild ungulates, chop down all your trees, dry out all your marshes and repeatedly burn the place – that way you could get a few more waders”? This is clearly preposterous, but it is exactly the nonsense one hears spouted when self-styled countrymen, eschewing ecological qualifications or expert opinion, insist that their “management” (killing and burning) is somehow essential to the wellbeing of the uplands. Instead of a self-sustaining, self-regulating, vibrant assemblage of wildlife in a diverse natural landscape we are forced to accommodate, nay even subsidise, the vandalism perpetrated on our flora and fauna by a tiny minority locked into an outdated Victorian mindset.
• When confronted with the ecological facts proponents of grouse shooting sometimes put forward an alternative defence, that their sport is somehow vital to the rural economy and that a ban represents some sort of attack on rural values. This latter claim is insulting to the actual majority of us living in the countryside who take no part in a “sport” enjoyed by perhaps just 40,000 people per year – less than a third of the number who signed the petition calling for a ban. The economic argument is also poorly thought out, taking no account of the economic harm the sport does (e.g. flood damage), conflating the economic benefits of shooting as a whole with the small part represented by grouse shooting and pretending that in the wake of a ban no alternative revenue streams would exist. Unlike driven grouse shooting, wildlife tourism is genuinely big business (for just one example witness the millions of pounds pouring into Skye following sea eagle reintroductions there) and the tourism industry could become a major pillar of the oft-quoted northern powerhouse if managed appropriately.
• You might as well argue that heroin dealing supports a small minority of the urban population and so should be legalised and supported by government subsidies. If something is fundamentally wrong, the fact that it makes a profit cannot be sufficient to morally defend it. We banned slavery. We banned tiger hunting. It’s time to ban driven grouse shooting. Past time in fact. In a fairer nation our national parks should not just be shooting grounds for a privileged few. They should be havens for nature, but the bizarre reality is that you have a better chance of seeing a peregrine falcon or a fox in central London than you do in the Peak District or the North York moors. It’s time to be bold. It’s time to be decisive. It’s time to turn the tide, to halt the damage and begin to help nature restore some of the wild beauty too long missing from our island. Ban driven grouse shooting.