UKH

Tonight the Scottish parliament voted that these beautiful wild creatures should now be protected in Scotland.... hopefully another step towards saner management of our uplands.

Adam Watson will be smiling from his resting place in the great mountain range in the sky.....

Good.

I didn't know what to think until I saw how numbers have collapsed over the last twenty years. Really quite shocking, surely not all due to shooting?

25000 a year...has been genocide

Probably, yes...

The numbers they shoot certainly wont help.

Excellent news.

I'm genuinely shocked by this. Where's that number from? 

I am delighted these creatures are getting proper protection. 

Who's the bugger, who is disliking all these posts????

Hares should be protected, and people shooting them, should in turn be shot....

Wow, excellent news. 
 

jcm

There is an argument against this, but it isn't a good argument and the underpinning science is hokey, so I suppose you can't come and make a rational defence, without exposing yourself to the light, so the phantom dislikes instead

If somebody shot a hare to eat it, then that could be argued as ok (same arguments for/against as any wild animal shot for the pot).

But 25,000 does seem a bit unlikely (understatement) to all be for the pot - are they shot for sport or are they considered detrimental to any money-making activities on the land they inhabit?

It would be a shame for them to die out and so the parliamentary decision is a good one.

The reason they are shot is that they are believed to harbour a disease which can kill  grouse.  

Much the same reason as badgers are killed because they harbour bovine TB which can be passed on to cattle.

All this tosh from some estates/gamekeepers about protecting the wildlife on our moorlands is just nonsense.  They kill anything that interferes with grouse numbers.

 

Ah grouse moors, thought it must be something like that. At least it conserves the grouse, oh hang on a minute...

Unfortunately it's all driven by the £

Hares also provide food for raptors, which also take grouse. Its a 'scorched earth' policy, essentially.

I was told that hares are shot because they carry ticks. And gamekeepers think that the ticks will in turn be passed onto the grouse thus reducing the numbers of grouse that can be shot later in the season. 

Is that not also why they like sheep? - they act as "tick sponges" collecting ticks which are then removed from site with the sheep.

Hares never fail to give me a thrill, every time one breaks cover under my feet - especially in the winter. I find these images of mass killings repugnant on every level 

Less useful now you cant sheepdip then and just have them as walking chemical warfare weapons.

I think the main liking of sheep is because they then allow some subsidy claims nowadays.

Does this really happen?

I think ticks only stay embedded for a week or so, so I'd have thought the presence of sheep would do much more to provide a steady blood supply for the ticks to lay more eggs, than it would do to remove ticks from the area. Unless you just put them in the area for a few days before dipping them, anyway.

Don't know, theres so much pseudo science and old wives tales around game keeping that I've never looked any closer, it's just what people have said/ written that I've come across

I'd recommend a book called "Who owns England?" it's fascinating if a bit of a tome! Definately made me think about the state of land ownership etc and the foreign ownership of the big grouse moors. There is a Scottish version as well. Makes me think every time I run across one of the barren moors what it could be like if it was less managed. 

We will have to wait and see what difference it actually makes Scot Gov. gave protection to Beavers, but allowed culling to be licenced via SNH where conflict's with land management couldn't be resolved.

Result land mangers went out to try and kill as many as possible before the law changed, and then SNH has authorized 20-30% of the remaining population to be culled....classic smoke and mirrors 'look at us we are protecting the cute furry things, vote for us',  pss't 'don't worry you can carry on almost as normal'.

Amazingly the legislation prevents humane translocation from a land-owner whom doesn't want and is having issues, to one that is happy to have them......obviously deliberately written to prevent widespread re-colonization.

^ This

It's a welcome step, but passing a law is one thing, actually implementing it is another. It's pointless if it's not enforced.

They used to be used as tick sponges but as Mondite says today its so they can claim agric. subsidies.

......or more managed......for biodiversity.......like Knepp.

Is that Knepp is bad? Or good? I did a quick google but wasn’t sure! It’s a large managed “wild” estate, right? 

Do you have a link to that book, WOE, or the author please?

Yes.

My feeling is everything about the Knepp estate is on the right lines. The book 'Wilding' is a best seller and is all about it. Its a good read. It gets across the point that to bring about biodiversity there needs to be a lot of management, and that its not enough just to leave it alone. 

It depends on what you are trying to do and in what timeframe.  Knepp is a fairly small estate (relatively speaking) and they are trying for some rapid changes as well as targeting specific species.

Oostvaardersplassen  is a lot larger and has a lot less intervention although even then it still runs into issues since it isnt a proper ecosystem yet.

What do you mean by management at Knepp? I've not read the book but my understanding was that management interventions were minimized, at least in the traditional agricultural land management sense. 

Just for balance; let’s also keep sight of the fact that many of these shooting areas are providing an element of conservation, which would otherwise not be done. Tree and cover crop planting and maintenance, pond and stream protection, all go a long way to helping areas that simply would not receive any help otherwise. Of course it would be nice to leave areas to become completely wild, but that’s just not how the real world works and without an income or purpose, these areas would find their income or purpose through being turned into farmland, felled for timber, turned into holiday parks etc etc.

It’s an uncomfortable truth for some, but the presence of these activities actually safeguards quite large areas of the country.

Where this falls down entirely, is where a small number of people cause a disproportionate amount of damage through outdated, excessive, or simply illegal management practices. Raptors, over-burning, excessive culling, excessive predation, all stack up against what could otherwise give some very positive outcomes. And all at the expense of tweed wearing shooters that everyone seems to dislike so much.

I’m sure many will disagree with this, but I’m just attempting to add a balanced counter point to the discussion. Something I’m aware is not overly popular on UKC these days!

What a balanced and insightful post.

I'm going for a sit down.

If you think that grouse moors are safeguarded natural areas, think again. Biodiversity on a landscape level needs habitat heterogeneity, the moors are managed to provide a very specific and homogenous habitat which is spread over a large area. I've no issue with harvesting wildlife if that's what people choose to do however for that to take place populations need to be monitored and quotas placed upon species which are exceeding their carrying capacity.

Grouse and pheasant shooting on the other hand is akin to shooting semi-domestic birds, if that's what floats peoples boat then why not just open a chicken coop for them and let them blast away. I don't see why our wild areas should suffer for the benefit of a few people who are being hoodwinked in to believing that they're actually hunting wild animals - they'd do a lot more use shooting the excess deer in the highlands.

I wasn’t talking specifically about grouse moors, just giving a bit of a general opinion on the wider subject. I would say that grouse moors often tend to be part of a wider estate, and the interest or income from the grouse moor is one of the factors that leads to the wider benefits mentioned before. I’m not for a moment going to pretend that it’s a perfect situation or that it’s not a contentious issue. Someone up thread said that money talks, and it’s true; we can’t ignore that reality when talking about conservation.

I would have to disagree with the pheasant shooting though, as it’s a different model from the grouse moor. The woodlands where the pheasants are raised are largely untouched other than for about 15 days of the year. I do voluntary conservation work and find myself staring at pheasant feeders for hours on end over winter. Pheasants are by far not the only beneficiaries of the feeders presence thorough the difficult winter months! I do feel many of these woodlands which are commercially worthless, would perhaps not exist at all without this activity being sought after. As to it’s relevance as a worthwhile pursuit, fair enough, however you won’t find a more free range animal in our food supply.

Agree on the deer, their cool and interesting appearance massively clouds the realities around the requirement for their monitoring and management. In fact I enjoyed a stag barking at me this morning when I was out doing some woodland monitoring.

I agree that if an estate diversifies its landscape then that would be very beneficial, however many seem far too drawn by the cash benefits of widescale grouse moors.

Your pheasant pens seem much nicer than the ones near me (England not Scotland). A grouse moor near here has recently diversified to pheasant shooting. They're reared in a pen with young spruce plantation and the large number of feeders for when they're released seem to attract feral pigeons and rats more than anything else (which of course then need controlling - the irony). I've also noticed an increase in snares since the pheasants arrived, presumably the foxes and stoats weren't paying their way. You're yet to convince me that either releasing birds for shooting or manipulating the environment to an extent that they can't do anything but thrive and then shooting them is in any way close to a balance with nature.

Maybe if we looked at the financial benefits from these areas as money saved by society from benefits such as CO2 sequestration, pollutant filtration, flood prevention and health benefits in those using them for recreation rather than the short term gains in an estates bank balance or tax revenues then we could continue to allow hunting to continue without it causing the ecological damage that it does at the moment. Many other countries manage to balance hunting while allowing ecosystems to regulate themselves, many of these countries also do not have the class or financial barriers to hunting which are inherent in our driven grouse model.  

You will not find that many of them in the food supply and, personally, I am not a great fan of fragmented lead. The impact of those ~50 million free range birds is unclear as well.

Why is it that every time I learn something new about the 'Grouse Industry' I find it disgusts me?

Well for starters, the numbers and type of grazing animals are carefully thought out, and these optimum levels maintained. 

So long as it's based on sound ecological reasons, I'm sure nobody on here has anything against well do to (and not so well to do) people wearing tweed going out and shooting animals for whatever reasons they do, so long as they're decent shots and the animals don't suffer.

Edit: I dare say some would do because of class and privilege, but the ecology is key ultimately, whatever humans find to get up to.

Edit2: I was surprised recently to find that pheasants reared for shooting can have their origins in China, as an imported species to be shot for 'sport'. Compared to muntjac deer which are bad for UK woodland biodiversity being shot, the argument for shooting pheasants reared for the purpose could seem to be slightly hard to pin down?

Ah, cheers. I'd assumed you meant more interventionist management (ground prep, drainage etc).

Yes you’re absolutely right. As I said, money talks and if we pretend it doesn’t when talking about conservation; we end up with ideas that sound great on paper but don’t work in the real world. We need to accept that money is important to people and that schemes and incentives cost money, then work forward from there.

Yes inevitably feeders can bring attention from rats etc, but those animals would be in existence regardless of the feeders, animals that might genuinely take a hit from a harsh winter can benefit from an additional guaranteed food source.

In terms of environmental manipulation, that’s my point; a woodland sits there in a relatively wild state, at a cost of nothing to the public or any conservation agency. If we banned shooting tomorrow, the very same woodland would become worthless to the landowner and indeed anyone else (what money can you make from a mixed unmanaged woodland?). It would likely be steadily turned into timber and eventually grazing land. The only way to keep it as a woodland would be to either incentivise doing so; which would cost the taxpayer; or have a charitable organisation take it on, again costing money which I don’t think would be as readily available as we would like to think. Or, we stay as we are, and we have pockets of semi-wild woodland dotted all across the country, at the cost of a few birds that predate or disturb nothing and a couple of blokes crashing around a handful of times a year. Seems a small price to pay to maintain these areas, especially when you start to seriously consider the alternatives. I’m talking about pheasant shoots now, obviously grouse moors are a much more specific environment.

Not on the shelf in the supermarket as it’s not particularly sought after or economical, but most of them end up in a pot, if not those doing the shooting but those that work or help out.

Yes good point, the FSA recommends no more than one portion of lead shot meat per week. The shooting community are moving to tungsten or steel because of this, and to protect water courses.

As I’ve said, it’s not without it’s flaws (like virtually any human activity), but in terms of human reared meat; pheasant is about as free range and low impact as you’ll achieve.

Plenty of people looking to buy amenity woodland around here. South Lakeland. Hobby woodsmen.

As usual, the switch to steel shot could have been done long ago by simply banning lead shot. One type of regulation for some, a different one for others...

CB

Well only as sound as, it can preserve habitats free of charge to the general public, that there are otherwise no mechanism for doing so, and I honestly don’t believe there would be. Eg Blencathra was up for sale for a basically low sum of money compared to public funds or some of the funds available to large conservation charities. A no-brainier to be bought and used as a beacon of what we all talk about wanting to see in our upland areas. Low and behold, no big organisations stepped up to the stump, giving their “endorsement” to a community group who intended to buy it on behalf of the community. Almost inevitably, and despite a tremendous effort and lots of celebrity praise, they “only” raised about 250k which wasn’t enough. I’m using this as an example of how we would like to think the resource or good will is there to mantain these areas, but even with such a high profile asset it’s simply not the case. What chance does some 10 acre copse in Hertfordshire have?

The above is all caveated by saying, as above, that when this is taken to the extreme (raptors, over-culls etc) of course it entirely unsustainable and damaging. I think many would be genuinely surprised at how loud the voice against these practices are from within the shooting community itself.

Yes, correct, some disagreement over the exact history, but there’s good evidence to say there were pheasant brought here over 1000 years ago. Amazing. Contrary to belief, without human interference they would probably now maintain an entirely wild population, albeit smaller.

I agree on the argument being hard to pin down, which is why I always add my 2 pence to these discussions. There’s a lot of shooting around my area, and I interact with most of it through my conservation volunteering, as they let me go on their land to do my work (conversely, something which I must say cannot always be said of land owned by conservation organisations). From anecdotal conversations, the class perception is often a big reason, but the shooters I talk to when I bump into them seem to be hugely diverse in terms of occupation and background, equally on a par with climbers. Certainly not class lead anymore, as you can shoot driven game or go deer stalking for less than £200 a day (not pennies, but not landed gentry money), and you can shoot pigeons for free or even get paid for it in many parts of the country. Granted you can also pay £2000 a day if you’re that way inclined!

Knepp is down the road from us and we’re regular visitors...it’s great what they’re doing.
it’s been a slow process but really starting to take off now.
I remember chatting to someone last year who was camping and he described the volume of birdsong in the morning as “deafening”

That's great. Lovely to have it on your doorstep. Nice to know that nature can still bounce back given the chance.

Why the f*ck would you shoot them?!

The evidence for this is limited. The prices have plunged as the supply has massively increased.

Sorry but this is vearing into fantasy here. The shooting community movement is, to put it bluntly, dragging its heals and doing everything it can to avoid it. There seems to be some acceptance now it is going to be inevitable but it certainly hasnt been shooting community led.

There are ~50 million released a year.   The impact isnt clear but logic would suggest that introducing that number into the ecosystem especially as "free range" so they have to be protected isnt going to be low impact.

Because its a sport apparently and also because they are claimed to pass parasites/disease to the red grouse and therefore reduce the number of grouse to be shot.

Probably more of a chance than a high priority extremely expensive project. Round here many are owned by hobbiest, Herts and Middlesex trust and the Woodland trust.

Yes I would be since their spokesgroups such the NGA, CA and GWCT are notorious for their lack of loud voice on the action.

Not exactly convinced by a wild population being viable but yes "smaller" would be an accurate way to describe it. 30-50 million pheasants and partridges are released each year.

I chatted to a neighbour who's part of a small local shooting syndicate a while back and he told me that at the start of last season they released c.1500 pheasants and by the end of the season had shot c.250 (IRC). So that's 1250 pheasants 'disappeared' into the ether. Probably strayed onto other local shoots (that release their own birds), hit by cars, eaten by predators (and they claim there are 'too many' predators, I wonder why). 

But they've got utmost respect for their quarry...

Yes but not enough of them at the moment. The statistic for the percentage of land which is shot over is huge. I can’t remember exactly but it’s something over 50%

I think the big problem was that most people’s guns aren’t certified for steel shot which is apparently quite a lot harsher on barrels than lead, so a law change would lead to a majority of shotguns being ornaments over night. As I said, people are already voluntarily using steel in some environments, and there’s a general push towards non-lead which is happening without he need for legislation.

In terms of pheasant ending up in the food supply, I'm speaking anecdotally in the sense that I live near lots of shooting areas, and whenever I ask if there’s any going spare it’s usually already been taken by people involved directly with the shoot. Of course I’m sure this isn’t the case everywhere.

You seem to know a lot more about it  than I do. As I say, I can only comment on what I’ve seen. Whenever I run into people shooting near areas of water they all have steel or one of the alternatives. I’ve asked why they don’t switch immediately for everything and the general consensus seems to be that once the issues mentioned up thread are sorted, they will all prefer steel as it’ll end up being cheaper once made in the same quantities as lead cartridges.

I’m not saying they’re classified as free range, I’m saying in terms of reared meat, pheasant is probably the least intensively farmed. For example, probably much better quality than anything on your average supermarket counter.

Just to reiterate, I have no dog in this fight! I don’t shoot or think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but when these kind of stories are published there are always calls to ban shooting to get rid of its negative externalities, but without any plan to replace the void it will create in the immediate term. I’m just trying to add a bit of balance that there are some positives to take from it even if you disagree with the activity.

The big problem is that the vocal part of the shooting world isn't interested in the impacts of their activities and don't like being told by 'outsiders' that they should change. Regardless if it would actually help them in the longer term.

As a teenager I was one of them - shot pigeons on local farms, went beating on pheasant shoots, had a subscription to Shooting Times magazine, even had a waxed jacket - so I know the entrenched and embattled position they generally take. Its generally always about preserving tradition and maintaining keeper's jobs (something rarely discussed). The conservation benefits to other species are often a happy coincidence - do you think these guys would be out creating habitat for other species if they didnt get their days shooting? I suspect not.

"at the cost of a few birds that predate or disturb nothing and a couple of blokes crashing around a handful of times a year."

A few birds? It's millions. This says 43 million per year:
https://britishbirds.co.uk/article/the-common-pheasant-its-status-in-the-uk...
It's hard to believe that number doesn't have any impact on other species.

And for some shoots, as you say, the birds will go into the food chain. But it's also the case that for many shoots excess birds just get dumped. A quick scan through the Raptor Persecution site will find many examples, but here are some dead birds dumped that I came across a few years back:
https://twitter.com/MikePeacock86/status/944274220179181570

So f*cking what, then they would simply have to buy new guns. Lead supplement in petrol was also banned, leaving some cars obsolete, even though the car industry declared it impossible (despite at the same time already selling cars happily using unleaded petrol for the US market).

You cannot solve a recognized environmental problem on a voluntary basis. Never has worked, never will, people are egotisistic arseholes (as proved by the fact that lead shot is still used DECADES after its environmental impact was clear for all to see).

CB

I think any group is guilty of circling the wagons when ‘outsiders’ start trying to impose change. I dare say we are all as bad.

”do you think these guys would be out creating habitat for other species if they didnt get their days shooting? I suspect not”

I suspect so too, hence my point that it a nice and unexpected benefit. My other point is I don’t think that there’s enough people waiting in the wings to do similar if shooting ceased to exist. 

Yeah I do understand that. So you’re talking about (I think) something like 500,000 new guns required in the UK. That in itself doesn’t come without a significant environmental impact. I’m not saying you should care about that, I’m just pointing out that legislating change is never as nice a tidy as it seems.

I accept your point about cars. I would say slightly different, as cars are an enormous part of our world in a way shooting simply isn’t. Should change be happening faster? For some even a legal ban wouldn’t be quick enough, for others a slow voluntary approach will be far too fast. You can’t please everyone.

I agree that we are all egotistical arseholes (as you so succinctly put it), flying around the world to pull on tiny bits of rock (myself included) despite the massive body of evidence to say how damaging that is. Let’s not be that group to yell about “the others” from our ivory towers. It rarely leads to any of the change we’re yelling about, and simply polarises people into two camps.

Also further evidence of egotistical arseholery, is me continuing to argue a point in which I have zero vested interest, just because I’m not getting enough mental stimulation at the moment! If nothing else I’m genuinely enjoying the reasoned debate, if feeling slightly cornered!

I think you have this the wrong way round: If guns are not necessary the way cars are, there is even less reason to take heed of the financial interest of gun owners. Also, you are right, regularly flying for climbing holidays is also extremely egotistical behaviour, which is why I try to cut down on it as much as I can tolerate. In the last 20 years, I flew three times for holiday / hobby purposes (Cyprus twice, Crete once). What is wrong with driving to the Alps, sharing a car or even, ideally, by train (of course that is a bit easier for me to say now that I am back in Germany)? 

There is no need to cut down our environmental impact to zero. Flying to the Med once a year for a couple of weeks seems fine, if you try to minimize your CO2 footprint at home. Flying, several timed for extended weekend trips would be obscence, though, given the tangible evidence of climate change.

Going back to the guns, if you were a subsistence hunter somewhere in Alaska, no one would complain about your lead shot. Spreading toxic metal pellets over the landscape for "sport" is simply perverse,and must be banned, given that voluntary approaches have completely failed.

CB

But you were saying how the shooting community were switching over. So I am struggling a bit with your logic here. If they wont obey legislation what chance has a voluntary system got?

Actually passing a law and enforcing it is generally pretty good at bringing change. 

Admittedly it can be limited as per the shooting communities disinclination to obey laws about not butchering raptors etc in order to boost their primary target species but still it works.

Whereas waiting for groups to change voluntarily is an extremely slow process since you generally need to wait for the next generation to take over and even then hope they arent steeped in "tradition".

Aside from there are quite a lot of people out there who would. There has been a massive growth in hobbiest wood keepers for example.

The habitat created is very limited and whether it is actually beneficial or not is debatable. Its quite telling that the shooting community seems somewhat adverse to studying it properly.

What impact does all these birds (using the shooting organisations own figures the BTO estimates the released birds have double the biomass of the actual native  breeding birds) have on the ecological system. Especially since they are "free range". Whats the impact on other ground nesting birds and insects etc?