How could grouse estates create a more realistic experience of nature

Missing golden eagles drove Kat Jones to be embroiled in a wider ornithological argument

Iusually keep Facebook for observations on family life, anecdotes of personal disasters and tales of losing my wallet/ keys/phone.

It isn’t somewhere I usually post political comment, instead I keep that for Twitter. Last week, however, the publication of the report on 131 satellite-tracked golden eagles showing that a third of them had gone missing in suspicious circumstances drove me to Facebook.

It wasn’t long before the extended family had picked up on it. “Something to discuss at the family gathering on Saturday?” posted a cantankerous relative, highlighting it to a cousin who works in the driven grouse business.

He was probably hoping for a repeat of a discussion at a similar event five years previously, when, sat at a trestle table in a large marquee, he had watched while the cousin and I had an animated argument pitting conservation against driven grouse moors.

We nearly missed the opportunity to revisit that discussion, when, just before setting out, I realised the family railcard had expired and renewing it seemed to be beyond the capacity of the ticket office. After a lot of faff and an aborted attempt, it became clear that wouldn’t happen.

Following a moment of horror when we found they couldn’t sell us tickets to England either, and some very quick thinking we managed to buy tickets to Carlisle and scurried to the train like shrews on amphetamine. The journey to Der-