Shooting Times & Country Magazine
RSPB survey results vastly in favour of game shooting
Recent review finds 86% of RSPB members are against a ban on shooting with conservation benefits the overriding factor
Survey results published by the RSPB have revealed that the overwhelming majority of the society’s members support game shooting.
The RSPB has been undertaking a review of its policy towards game shooting despite its Royal Charter preventing it from taking any ethical stance on the issue. The results of a series of surveys and interviews conducted as part of the review were published by RSPB conservation director Martin Harper, who claimed that: “We are doing the review because there is growing public concern and mounting scientific evidence about the environmental impacts of these types of shooting.”
Anti-shooting members had taken the review as an opportunity to lobby for the charity to support a ban on shooting. However, their efforts appear to have failed with 86% of the more than 5,000 members surveyed saying that they do not support a ban on game shooting.
Among those expressing support for conservation-minded shooting was Dr Alexander Lees, senior lecturer in conservation biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, who told Shooting Times: “For my part, I welcome any land uses that deliver biodiverse land-covers that can deliver ecosystem services and view the fringes at either extreme of the divide – those who would forbid efforts to control invasive species in the name of animal rights and those who continue to persecute threatened species in the name of higher gamebird bags – in the same bad light. We face a battle to secure a more biodiverse future for the UK and this will be impossible without collaboration between diverse stakeholders and acknowledging complex trade-offs.”
Using an unspecific statistic, the charity said that fewer than 50% of members who responded were ‘very concerned’ about legal predator control. Commenting on this, Dr Lees said: “There is an urgent need to better convey the importance of reducing numbers of some species that proliferate in the farmed environment to people who take such strong animal rights stances, as prevention of control is likely to result in the loss of many rare species.”
Part of the consultation focused on the RSPB’S proposed principles for sustainable shooting. These were broadly welcomed, however, the 60 members of the shooting community who were interviewed expressed reservations.
The report noted that many interviewees were worried they were on “a slippery slope towards restricting or banning shooting, and jeopardising some of the conservation work being done”.
Matt Cross
“Prevention of control of some species is likely to result in the loss of many rare species”
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