Simon Barnes is a fantastic writer. He is my favourite sports' journalist and his regular column in Nature’s Home is always one of the first I flick to. In the last issue, he writes as eloquently as ever on shooting in our uplands and the persecution of birds of prey, but when I read the first draft of our annual Birdcrime report, detailing the offences against wild bird legislation in 2012, I'm not sure I quite lived up to Simon’s challenge.
In his column, Simon discusses how as people who love wildlife have to get used to dealing with getting sad and angry. He concludes that while talking about illegal killing of birds of prey “anger here is for our own private use: in public we must be cool and measured.” I am a naturally emollient person (too emollient for some), yet reading Birdcrime 2012, I struggle to control my emotions.
Birdcrime again details the ongoing incidents of illegal persecution of birds of prey in the UK, through shooting, trapping and poisoning. It’s not an easy read, but its important stuff, so I encourage you all to have a read. What I find particularly depressing is how similar it is to last year’s report. And the one before that...
In the week that we published the State of UK Birds report, it is clear that the pressures on the natural world are growing and, as we know from CAP calculations, our response is both inadequate and is slowing. Given the many challenges that nature faces, it is depressing that we still have to deal with problems that should have been stopped long ago.
I've been in this job long enough to be able to predict how some will respond. Through our report, we maintain that illegal killing of birds of prey is wrong and must stop. Many within the shooting community will respond by condemning the illegal killing of birds of prey (good), but suggesting either explicitly or implicitly, that RSPB is exaggerating the problem to make money, that it’s a historic problem that has largely stopped and that it’s only a tiny minority or a few bad apples who give everyone else a bad name. There will probably then be much complaining about how RSPB is undoing all the good work we do with some of the shooting community, by publicising all this stuff about birds of prey.
The last one is the one that particularly gets me. It seems to suggest that in order to work with one bit of a community to achieve positive conservation gains, we have to not say anything about bad things happening. So, in the interest of cutting through this usual back and forth and find some common ground, here are some no-brainers that I would hope everyone could agree:
- Illegal persecution of birds of prey is still happening and is unacceptably common in some areas.
- Illegal persecution of birds of prey is sufficient to have conservation level effects on some species.
- Illegal persecution of birds of prey has declined in many lowland areas, allowing the recovery of species such as buzzards (which the Bird Atlas confirms now has the sixth - the sixth! - largest wintering range of any British and Irish species) and red kites.
- Since 1990 out of 160 people that were convicted of bird of prey crime 70% of those (that stated their occupation in court) were gamekeepers.
- Illegal persecution of birds of prey is associated with intensively managed upland grouse moors.
Many shooting estates make positive contributions to wildlife conservation and I hope no-one will find too much to disagree with in those bullet points. I would go further and say that illegal persecution of birds of prey is a stain on the conscience of our country.
Clearly there is a massive challenge here.
Gamekeepers on upland shooting estates could be the guardians for birds of prey like the hen harrier, but this is not where we are at the moment. The RSPB stands ready to work with any shooting estate to provide sustainable land management to benefit all, but we cannot and will never turn a blind eye to the illegal killing of birds of prey.
It is great that many within the shooting community condemn illegal persecution. This is positive as far as it goes. However, actions speak louder than words and the time for action is now. The challenge to the grouse shooting community is to demonstrate that their activities are sustainable - helping to look after some of the wildest parts of our country. If they do, we stand ready to work with those who operate within the law and to agreed environmental limits.
But for those who continue to flout the law and illegally kill birds of prey, I’m sorry Simon, I struggle to maintain my normal “cool, measured demeanour”. Anger is dangerous and rarely helpful, but one way or another we must remove this stain on the conscience of our country.
If only the whole country cared enough about this issue to get angry about it at once. I think anger, at the right time and place, is a potentially very good thing.
Our herring gulls are red listed birds. Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.