Talk about the protection of Hen Harriers and Grouse Moors at my local indoor members group meeting

There are a few points raised on this thread, some of which are often quoted by conservation organisations like the RSPB which are misleading, potentially even blatantly false - so I'm going to play 'devils advocate' and argue a few points...

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"The majority of heather moorland in the UK is owned primarily for Grouse shooting and if it wasn't for that reason through management by the owners of the moors, we would lose the majority of heather moorland in the UK."

Possibly it is true that the majority of heather moorland in the UK would be lost if it wasn't owned and managed for grouse shooting, but heather moorland is generally of little use for 'development' or agriculture so I wonder how much would actually be lost. Presumably the greatest threats would be from forestry and potentially attempts to 'improve' grazing opportunities.

It is also worth considering that we may not have had as much heather moorland in the first place without grouse shooting - so the continuation of grouse shooting may be protecting some areas of habitat that were created, or allowed to develop, specifically for that purpose.

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"Moorland managed for industrial scale grouse shooting is about as natural an ecosystem as a supermarket car park (and with the right ornamental tree planting between the parking bays they, at least, get winter Waxwings)."

You could say the same thing about pretty much every other habitat in the UK. Over the centuries man has influenced the UK habitats so much that we no longer really have much that can be called 'natural'.

Sure, there is obviously control of top predators (both legal and illegal) on grouse moors, but the wildlife in all other habitats is also controlled by man - whether this is a result of herbicides and pesticides used on farmland, culling of foxes and deer (both of which may take place on some nature reserves), or 'habitat management' such as scrub removal etc.

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"The Isle of Man has heather moorland. It has grouse shooting too only not on the grandiose scale we get on the mainland. It also has something that England doesn't - A reasonable population of breeding Hen Harriers."

A breeding Hen Harrier population that fell by roughly 50% between the surveys in 2004 and 2010, despite the lack of much grouse shooting.

Could this indicate that illegal persecution is not the only reason for the decline of Hen Harriers in the UK? Perhaps it was just a poor year for rodents in 2010 so many Hen Harriers choose not to breed - data in future years may give more indication as to whether or not there is a problem with the Manx Hen Harrier population.

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"The persecution of the Hen Harrier over many has nearly wiped out the species in England all because people want to go out and shoot a grouse!"

Illegal persecution of Hen Harriers is clearly a real problem, and has without any doubt contributed to the decline (extemination?) of breeding Hen Harriers in England. However, is it really fair to say that illegal persecution is the main cause? If there was no persecution of Hen Harriers in England how do we know that they would not still be declining in numbers? Perhaps illegal persecution has contributed to, and hastened, a decline which could have occurred anyway but has gone unnoticed because of the obvious illegal persecution.

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"We have habitat that would hold 300 plus nesting pairs"

This is an often quoted 'fact' based on an assessment of the amount of habitat apparently similar to the habitat chosen by nesting Hen Harriers in the UK which is found in the UK as a whole, and taking into account the typical size of Hen Harrier territories.

The problem is that apparently suitable habitat is often not occupied by birds, even if there is no human persecution and no other reason that we know of for the absence of breeding pairs. The assumption that if there was no persecution we would have 300+ nesting pairs of Hen Harriers is one that cannot be upheld because we have no way of knowing whether there are other factors affecting their breeding distribution.

If similar habitat mapping studies were carried out for species such as Willow Tit, Tree Sparrow, Wryneck, etc, I wonder how many pairs of those species it would be determined should be present in comparison to the numbers we actually have breeding (probably well over 100, 000 more Tree Sparrow pairs than we actually have!).