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DezB - Member
They don't look very hard to shoot.. or is that the idea?
they don't fly very fast.
they don't fly very high.
they do fly in nice straight lines.
they like areas bereft of trees*, making for excellent visibility.
they're pretty much the perfect gamebird.
(*i've been to many, too many, land-management meetings where a large amount of time is spent discussing the 'progress' in the removal of self-seeded trees - in order to maintain the [i]natural[/i] habitat)
Finally up here this is being taken seriously. https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/vicarious-liability-prosecution-andrew-duncan-newlands-estate-part-9/
Speaking to one of the Natural England bods about grouse moors in Yorkshire they said the two they went to were over run with rabbits due to the persecution of predators. Hardly a natural environment.
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Quite liked this bingo card...
😆
Ninfan, I scan read that link but could only see an application / appeal for pheasant protection, not granted for chicken protection, where is it? Genuine question, I'm quite interested being a bit of a shooter myself
Are ninfan and Jamba the same person? Can't be two of them, surely...
Has this been done:
[url= http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/calder-valley-campaigners-leading-nationwide-11698076#ICID=sharebar_twitter ]Calder Valley campaigners are leading a nationwide fight to ban grouse hunting[/url]
There is no place in a balanced upland ecology for driven grouse shooting. Subsidised playtime for rich folks, unacceptable damage to everyone and everything else. We should ban it forthwith.
Highland man - you need another use for the land if you are going to do that. Otherwise its ends up deep heather and scrub and a mess.
Ninfan is not Jamby. While I am loathe to come to Ninfans aid on this topic - he does know what he is talking about albeit a very one sided view.
tjagain - Member
Highland man - you need another use for the land if you are going to do that. Otherwise its ends up deep heather and scrub and a mess.
here's one use:
let the trees grow back (or even better, plant them), let the drains fill up, save a ****ing fortune on building flood defenses further downstream.
ahwiles - blanket bog and upland heath are important habitats for a range of endangeoured/rare plants and animals. For a lot of moors this 'character' is designated protected by SSSI, SPA and SAC status just letting it get overgrown by rowan, birch and hawthorn wouldn't add to the biodiveristy. Tnere's definitely scope to use these areas as carbon and water sinks but just letting all or the majority of the landscape revert to scrub would have detrimental impacts.
One of the few positives of brexit might mean that we can encode better stewardship/environmental objectives into subsidy regimes
Yup - then who is going to maintain it? Trees will not regenerate on many of the grouse moors as there are no local native species to seed there.
Land needs a use of some sort. Replanting native forest is all good - but its not cheap and needs maintenance. Something needs to be done instead with this land
we're not really talking about areas of blanket bog, etc. though are we.
we're talking about areas that were once heavily wooded, and are now effectively deserts of heather, thanks to regular burning.
tjagain - Member
Replanting native forest is all good - but its not cheap
it can very cheap, profitable even, people will pay / volunteer to do it for you:
[url= http://www.worldlandtrust.org/projects/plant-tree?gclid=CLvm3ZTwp84CFeQK0wodxmYK2g ]woodland trust - plant a tree[/url]
I know a couple of places that have charged over £8m for a weekend of shooting. 😯 and they re-booked for the following year! 😆
The peat moors were all blanket bog, that's where the peat came from. You don't get peat in forests you get aereated loam.
Most of the deforestation occurred in the bronze age, some of it will have been woodland but not all by any stretch.
that's why i said:
"one use"
Its really not as clear cut tho - without a use for the land then it will end up as scrub and deep heather. There is almost no natural land in the uk. Its all created and maintained landscapes
how much management do we think this requires:
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?
You wouldn't get that though, you'd get something more akin to the central reservation of a motorway as aggressive pioneer species would dominate the light and slow growing woodland apex broadleaves wouldn't get established. Ancient woodlands didn't just appear over night there the result of, lierally, glacially slow changes in fauna since the end of the ice age.
yes, you're right. trees are simply incapable of self-seeding.
i'll be late home tonight, as i'll be stopping to cut back the young oak, sycamore, ash, beech, birch, lime, rowan, trees that are now growing so fast they need regular, almost weekly, 'training' to stop the cycle path getting blocked.
it's on the old orgreave site btw, as far as i can tell it's all self-seeded. When i started it was mostly brambles, but after a few more years, the trees are a bit bigger, and the brambles a bit smaller...
(it's really quite nice to 'watch', and i'm quite proud of my developing tree-tunnel)
Stabiliser, can I suggest you google 'Carrifran Wildwood'. Of course it needs human input, there are no seed sources, but the intent is to replicate what used to be there.
Stabiliser, you have to think a bit wider/larger/longer term. Heather desert is a modern invention and the scrub woodland is only going to be a passing phase, gradually replaced by native mixed & broadleaf to become mature forest, given time. Yes, it would look a bit messy for a while but it has value, especially in terms of creating managed coppicing for sustainable and local energy growing. Take the land back into community ownership (by evicting those who stole it in the first place, if necessary) and support communities to find their own uses. Some might even build trails to support alternative land use... The industrialised land and over-population model currently afflicting much of the UK and many countries is not sustainable anyway and must either reverse or will collapse at some point. Vicarious liability for raptors would be an acceptable starting step in my book.
So, despite decades of ecological research and a pan european scientific/policy consensus, upland heath and blanket bog aren't priority habitats and STW 'I know bestism' has, once again, triumphed over the science. Fair enough lads I'll leave you to it
all i said was: as an alternative to intensively sterilized grouse/heather moorland, we could plant a few (million) trees. they're nice, they're useful, and in many cases woodland represents the natural state.
you seem to have extrapolated that sentiment quite an impressive distance!
Stabiliser, there's no need to go off in a huff when the discussion doesn't go entirely your way. The only environment that I have a beef with is the heather desert, which only exists because it has been recently created and then expensively managed to support the large grouse crop that allows for driven guns to have their 'sport'.
The research which I've been lucky enough to have had the time to read suggests that a range of habitats will become natural if left unsupported and that our own priorities can certainly be used to help lead nature into certain outcomes. However, these are not then 'natural', whatever that means. Heather desert is an expensive luxury, damaging in several different ways (minimal biodiversity, illegal predator persecution, drainage issues, elitism..) and as it only benefits a tiny handful of already wealthy, privileged people off the back of a large state subsidy, it cannot be justified in either financial or environmental terms. If landowners do not want the land when there is no longer a shooting asset, no subsidy or other support, they can hand it back to the communities from which it was stolen in the first place.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37033067 ]Lovely, cuddly gamekeepers....[/url]
Disgusting.
Yup, just heard that on GMS.
Appalling defence from the organisation they dragged a statement out of, in effect attacking the RSPB as having no evidence. Well, apart from the coordinates, provided by satellite trackers of eight eagles going missing in the same area over a few years, and then there being no trace of the birds at those exact locations.
NoBeer beat me to this. Ongoing travesty perpetuated by landowners and their factors. Wildlife crime is under reported and only selected cases investigated. Conviction rates are low and the penalties minimal.
Apologies to the OP for off topic rantette.
D
If this is 'managing the land' I'd rather have stabilisers ****** brambles.
Only one more day before the [s]Slaughter[/s] culling commences.
Where is ninfan? is he still trying to figure out that pheasants aren't chickens 😆
you're all just a bunch of townies, and you don't understand or appreciate traditional rural ways.
Well, apart from the coordinates, provided by satellite trackers of eight eagles going missing in the same area over a few years, and then there being no trace of the birds at those exact locations.
Whole ships and planes go missing in the Bermuda Triangle, perhaps that's down to gamekeepers as well?
There may well be no smoke without fire, but who needs evidence in things like this?
But you see, thats what happens - in the absence of any evidence, there is always 'really only one explanation'...
(Ps, pigface, since it's obvious that you didn't bother to actually read the detail of the court case, here's the formal Natural England technical assessment detailing their recommendation of buzzard control licence to protect poultry on a free range chicken farm, read it and weep: http://tinyurl.com/zo6aph7 )
I have to ask. Why does anyone engage with ninfan?
I mean we're at the point where he is suggesting gamekeepers are shooting down planes in the Bermuda Triangle as a counterpoint.
well, in the complete absence of any evidence that they are [b]not[/b] responsible, have you got a better explanation?
buzzard predation?
Can't stand the shoots. I live in very rural countryside- nearest pub is miles away, mostly singletrack lanes with lots of fords, so no, I'm not a Townie.
They turn up annually and churn up the countryside with their unsuitable 4x4s before commencing with their bloodbath. They shoot next to roads and village and often scare the local animals- dogs, cows & sheep. Once they've cleared off they leave plenty of empty cartridges around and ruts everywhere. The gamekeepers seem to hate anyone else using the countryside. I've been chased for using a bridleway on the bike and they've put fences for pheasant up blocking rights of way. The whole business hasn't contributed anything to our local community, despite them taking up a fair chunk of land.
I can't for the life of me see the pleasure in murdering something that is thick, slow and easy to shoot. A few pages back, someone commented 10 guns and 800 birds, that's 80 birds per shooter.. I know they are portly gentlemen, but there is no way they are eating 80 birds each. The local pubs don't sever much game at all, so I find it hard to see how it all gets eaten, particularly when it's been peppered with a shotgun at 10ft.
they can hand it back to the communities from which it was stolen in the first place.
This explains a significant portion of the motivation of the "anti-s", good old class warfare innit
As for gamekeeprs killing predators yes that is a fact of life which the police should deal with. I'd wager egg collectors do more damage to bird populations than do gamekeepers.
The local pubs don't sever much game at all, so I find it hard to see how it all gets eaten,
Most exported to France - if you ever get the opportunity to go around the Rungis trade market in Paris it's an eye opener to just how much British game meat gets exported
I'd wager egg collectors do more damage to bird populations than do gamekeepers.
Maybe you're right but neither of them is helping and both should be prosecuted for their selfish motives, although you could argue many gamekeepers are just doing someone else's bidding.
@cokie I have never been on a shoot either as a beater when a teenager or with working dogs as anpicker or as a gun where the bag is anything like &0 birds a gun, not even half of that - more like a quarter max. Its very very poor form to shoot any bird from close range, its very much frowned upon and the shoot master would not allow a gun to continue if they where shooting birds at 10ft. That's my experience
we went for a scramble up kinder on Sunday.
The National Trust have planted thousands of trees*, and blocked lots of little streams.
All good stuff: bio diversity, flood prevention, restoration of woodland and bogs, and i doubt anyone had to shoot or poison anything.
Couple that with the NT's decision to stop Grouse Shooting on their land in the Peak, and i'm a very happy member.
[url= https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/national-trust-pulls-grouse-shooting-lease-in-peak-district-national-park/ ]linky dink.[/url]
(*some already big/sturdy enough to offer the struggling scrambler a little purchase)
Couple that with the NT's decision to stop Grouse Shooting on their land in the Peak, and i'm a very happy member.
From page 1:
The lease isn't pulled yet: the NT have said it will stop at the half-way review point in April next year. Their tenants are expected to understand this (a big read)...
Just to add a bit of balance, I went beating when I was 18, three weeks up the back of Comrie. Only two of weeks were actual beating with the middle given over to maintenance (laying grit pits for the grouse) as the season was bad. Last season up there for a few years till I gave up asking.
Spotted a fair amount of predators, none of which the keeper seemed remotely bothered about. In fact he was keen to point them out and seemed happy to see them, I think someone asked about persecution and he didnt have much good to say about those that practice it.
So like everything there are those that bring the entire thing into disrepute.
Oh, and 80 a bag? LMAO, we would have been lucky to pull an eigth of that off the hill in a day. Our grouse were smart and flew low, usually over our heads back where we came from...
Just on the these numbers about bird to gun ratio it was me that made the original claim from memory, frankly reading an advert that was using language unfamiliar to me, so I could've been wrong. I can spot a £ so though so clearly remember it was £1400+VAT (which makes me think it's corporate or invariably not done by an 'individual'). So I win a fiver for answering the OP's question 😉
This explains a significant portion of the motivation of the "anti-s", good old class warfare innit
I couldn't give a toss about the sport itself (similarly fox hunting) but I do think there is mounting evidence of management of moors for shooting having a significant impact on hydrology and runoff to the detriment (and cost) of those living downstream and the authorities attempting to manage flooding.
I'm also sure there are areas where the impact is minimal.
I will go driven grouse shooting sometime in the future, I'll have to be better off than I am now though......
Why do I want to go - it's bloody difficult, takes a LOT of skill, birds flying not far above your head at lighting speed. I shoot already, though not particularly succesfully, I enjoy it, and would like to eat some grouse.
I get my butler to organise it, so I'll ring for him now...
I used to love rough shooting (for the pot*) with a couple of mates and dogs but struggle with the whole driven version. Too much like ritual slaughter to me, but each to their own.
* at Uni we found an estate where the owner provided us with cartridges and gave us full freedom to shoot as many pigeon and rabbits as we could. No game though. We were not efficient as only shot enough to eat, but it was great countryside and challenge. We lived in pigeon breast and rabbit for a whole term!
But I have lost the taste for shooting these days...ditto fishing. Even have veggie weeks now and again 😉
[i]Whole ships and planes go missing in the Bermuda Triangle, perhaps that's down to gamekeepers as well?
There may well be no smoke without fire, but who needs evidence in things like this?
But you see, thats what happens - in the absence of any evidence, there is always 'really only one explanation'...[/i]
Bermuda Triangle as a comparison, really?
[i]It is surely no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of satellite-tagged birds of prey that have disappeared in Scotland have been in areas intensively managed for gamebird shooting and in areas that have an appalling previous record of confirmed incidents of raptor persecution. These eight birds have all disappeared in an area where driven grouse moor management dominates the landscape, [b]and where there have been many previous cases of illegal killing of protected raptors, including the poisoning of a golden eagle and a white-tailed eagle as recently as 2010[/b][/i]
Funny how in England satellite tagged Hen Harrier tend to disappear under similar circumstances. Tags that mainly seem to stop transmitting and disappear when strapped to game keeper persecuted birds.
scuttler - Member
Just on the these numbers about bird to gun ratio it was me that made the original claim from memory, frankly reading an advert that was using language unfamiliar to me, so I could've been wrong. I can spot a £ so though so clearly remember it was £1400+VAT (which makes me think it's corporate or invariably not done by an 'individual'). So I win a fiver for answering the OP's question
I know quite a few individuals who pay an awful lot more than that for a days shooting. When you've spent £55k on a Holland and Holland you need somewhere to show it off!
I can't say I'm a huge fan of Monbiot, but I'll post this.
Don't forget the deadly windmills, which aren't actually there, yet...
at Uni we found an estate where the owner provided us with cartridges and gave us full freedom to shoot as many pigeon and rabbits as we could. No game though. We were not efficient as only shot enough to eat, but it was great countryside and challenge. We lived in pigeon breast and rabbit for a whole term!
I think you're confusing your own life with a plotline from Brideshead Revisited, old bean 😉
at my uni we kept a BB gun to threaten scrotes. And also gaffa taped the letterbox down so they couldn't put fireworks through it. They set fire to our car instead. And the house next door
Scotland is a very civilised place to live and study doris!! It did have strong Brideshead aspects to it admittedly. The British Field Sports Scoeity had more student members than the NUS and the protest against cutting grants mustered about 5 people 😉
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37107652
Another one gone missing, 8 seems to be more that you can put down to a coincidence.
Evidently it's down to windfarms, that haven't been built yet...
Funny how the 'Bermuda Triangles' for satellite tagged birds only occur over grouse moors...
Funny how the 'Bermuda triangles' for satellite tagged birds only occur over grouse moors...
Literally just read your post and then saw this appear on Twitter: http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/news/rspb-news-release
Very sad that this is happening and that some people are pathetic enough to turn a blind eye just so they can shoot some birds.
Is it coincidence that NInfan is a brexiter and obviously experts are claiming that grouse moors and their management are causing issues????
experts
Do all 'experts' have the same opinion, or are the ones you choose to listen to all coincidentally members of LACS like Avery?
Chickens pheasants, pheasants chickens if only we could find an expert who knows the difference
Natural England seemed to know the difference: http://tinyurl.com/zo6aph7
Dunno about pheasants and chickens but I know weasels are weasily recognised and stoats are stoatally different.
All your bluff and bluster and you still can't back up your lie, you truly are pitiful.