Over the past week I have been contacted by many people through a variety of media about the RSPB’s position on grouse shooting.
It’s fair to say that I have had a mixed response – some offering full support (which is much appreciated), while others wishing we would back the call for a ban (these are also appreciated, especially the polite ones). A flavour of the critique is captured in the comments on Friday's blog but some of the criticisms that we have received (usually via twitter) have been, let’s say, more blunt.
So, I thought that it would be useful to share a few insights into our position.
The RSPB is an evidence-based organisation but also one with values. Our values reflect our charitable objectives to undertake conservation for the public good.
For example, we are supportive of renewable energy in the fight against climate change, but we oppose developments that will impact on wildlife populations and important habitats. On the other hand, we are against airport expansion unless or until it can be demonstrated that a growth in capacity will be consistent with obligations to greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Equally, we are neither for or against organic or farming that uses pesticides or even GM crops. We care about the impact that those farming practices have on the natural environment and we work with any farming system to help recover farmland wildlife populations.
We are also neutral on the ethics of shooting but we do care about the environmental consequences of that activity.
And the growing evidence of the environmental impact of ever intensive driven grouse shooting led us in 2012 to conclude that self-regulation of this industry had failed and so we would advocate a licensing system designed to reduce the negative impacts.
Others, including two of the RSPB’s Vice-Presidents and my predecessor, Mark Avery, would like us to go further and are calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting.
I have doubts as to the viability of such a proposition but I respect their position, even though I disagree with it. What I do not respect, is the drip-drip of scorn that is levelled at the RSPB about our position and our wider work to protect birds of prey.
On this issue and in this job, I have learnt not to get riled by comments but when people have implied over the past week that we do not have the courage to support a ban on grouse shooting, I take exception.
To me, courage is staying up all night protect a hen harrier nest. Courage is managing a nature reserve next to an intensively managed grouse shoot, where the gamekeepers of the neighbouring estate patrol the borders, yes with guns. Courage is installing cameras on estates where bird of prey crime is thought to happen in the hope of catching the criminals in the act. Courage is appearing in a witness stand in the face of a defence lawyer who attacks both the evidence and the character of the person providing it.
This is the courage that RSPB staff and volunteers demonstrate again and again. And I will go further and suggest that courage is looking your friends at Natural England in the eye and telling them that they were wrong to enter into an ill-conceived management agreement with Walshaw Moor Estate and that this would trigger a legal challenge.
It also takes courage when members of the shooting community speak out against others who need to improve the way their shooting estates are managed.
I think that change is coming. In Scotland, the Government is seriously considering whether to introduce a licensing system for driven grouse shooting. This is long overdue but would be a welcome step.
Given our neutrality on the ethics of shooting, we do not make a judgement about the rights or wrongs of people driving red grouse across a moor to be shot (provided it does not affect the conservation status of red grouse). We focus our efforts on the environmental damage caused by grouse shooting: the peatlands that are damaged by burning, the water that is polluted, the predators that are illegal killed. We believe that a licensing system, a reformed approach to consenting burning on peatlands, restoration of these special sites coupled with better enforcement and tougher penalties for wildlife crime can address these issues. And we will work with anyone to make this happen and give credit when and where it is due.
As I have written previously, if the economics of any business – including grouse shooting – was dependent on environmentally unsustainable practices, then I would argue that it was time for that business to change.
I do not expect that this blog will change the minds of those that support a ban – indeed, that is not my motivation. To those that do not like our position because you want us to support a ban, I at least ask you to respect our position. To those that do not like it because it challenges your sport, I ask that you look at the growing public concern associated with your sport and encourage you to seek reform from within the shooting community.
If you have any comments on this blog, as ever, it would be great to hear your views.
Rob, how do you explore the 'unforseeable'?
I would also like to know what you are planning to do in the event that the Ban Driven Grouse Shooting petition petition.parliament.uk/.../125003 reaches 100000 signatures and a Parliamentary debate is held (I assume, as Conservation Director, that you must have at least considered this eventuality). If a debate is held would you be advising MPs not to support a ban? Would you instead advise MPs that licensing would be a better option? If the latter is to be the case (and it would be useful to recap why RSPB think this is the case) would not RSPB simply be co-opting Mark Avery's work to get a debate without doing any of the work themselves? Would that really be the most courageous, or honest, of moves?
Yes, this is a fair summary of the RSPB’s current stance, and in the context of the barrage of criticism you have been receiving in response to your previous blog and elsewhere, I can understand why you have focused on what you aver are the negative consequences of management for driven grouse shooting. But as someone with direct involvement in such management – and proud of it – as well as being familiar with the relevant science (including your own), I still regard it as a pity that you couldn’t acknowledge the conservation benefits that unquestionably result from game management in the uplands.
The proposed ban on driven grouse shooting would not merely be of dubious viability, as you observe; it would also have a devastating impact on many of our most endangered upland species. I do hope you will now have the courage to say so unequivocally.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.../jpe12167.pdf;t=inrdyzia&s=7db4ccc94870c3c5c922d45d91781a401fcc8b70
www.gwct.org.uk/.../waders_on_the_fringev2.pdf
Martin, you say 'we would advocate a licensing system'; but what practical steps is RSPB taking to achieve that goal? Are you, for example, prepared to get the membership involved by starting an e-petition in this regard? At the moment it would appear RSPB wishes licensing would happen but has not outlined any steps it is taking to make it happen, or at least is not prepared to either involve or inform the membership about it.
I can't trust the HH Action Plan when there is nothing in it that even gives a hint that it is addressing the problem.
Therefore i can't trust the RSPB when this plan is all it is offering.
That and a whisper to introduce licensing.
The RSPB appears to be asking for my trust when it is acting as a part of a group of other organizations all of which have conflicting interests.
How can i trust reports signed off on by organizations which at the most only pay lip service to raptor protection.
It is very hard to trust the RSPB on this matter when after years of talks nothing changes.
This is a legal issue. To me it shouldn't even be an issue that conservation NGO's should have anything to do with.
But no one else is upholding the law so it is great the RSPB is doing it. It is our only hope and there lies the rub.
The issue has become political and has become bogged down with what appears to me to be just talk. Until now when 2 new options are on the table Brood Persecution ('Management') and a lowland introduction scheme both of which are efforts of the shooting estates to get Hen Harriers off their land but don't even touch on the persecution of Golden Eagles and Peregrines etc.
How can i trust the RSPB on this issue when i seems to be losing the battle.
I came to the realisation that the Red Kite and White-tailed re-introductions should not have happened before either licensing or banning grouse moors.
I hate the idea of releasing birds which are going to be shot or poisoned on the uplands.
My last pocket of hope with the RSPB is that they have a card up their sleeve a plan B but if there is i think that transparency is more important than politics and they should come clean. I hate released bird being shot and i think it is immoral to do so but i could just about manage to accept it if i knew that this was an ultimatum.
The Hawk and Owl Trust have said so but i am afraid i don't trust them one iota. If the RSPB said that the first bird that disappears in suspicious circumstances would mean the RSPB coming out all guns for a ban and withdrawal from all the conflicting coalitions, i think i could justify that to myself. That Hen Harrier should get the Victoria Cross for gallantry.