BBC’s Packham says ‘terminate’ grouse shooting at all costs
SCOTLAND’S grouse shooting industry should be ‘terminated’, a BBC presenter claimed last night.
Chris Packham, who presents the Springwatch nature programme, said he did not care about the jobs grouse shooting supports or the money it injects into the economy.
The TV star dismissed more than 1,000 Scots working on grouse moors and the £23.3million the industry generates in his broadside days after the start of the grouse season on the Glorious Twelfth.
Speaking before appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Mr Packham, 55, made his views clear despite facing an investigation by the BBC Trust.
After collecting more than 100,000 signatures on a petition to ban driven grouse shooting, the naturalist has met the target to force Westminster to debate the issue.
Asked about the effect of a ban on grouse shooting in Scotland, where there are more than 300 grouse moors and properties involved in the sport, he reiterated his view that birds of prey are being illegally killed to protect grouse.
Mr Packham said: ‘If an industry is founded on criminal behaviour, I don’t care how much money it is worth and how many people might be employed. It has to be terminated – that is the law of the land. If, to provide enough grouse on a driven grouse moor you have to cull birds of prey, then shut it down.’
He added: ‘I’m not an extremist, I’m a conservationist.’
The Scottish Moorland Group, part of Scottish Land and Estates which represents landowners, says grouse moor management helps conserve wild birds such as the curlew and golden plover. Director Tim Baynes said: ‘We repeatedly condemn illegal acts but it is disappointing to hear someone blind themselves to the realities of the many benefits of grouse shooting.
‘Aside from the multi-million benefit to Scotland’s tourism industry, grouse shooting supports many fragile rural communities.’
Countryside campaigners have called for the BBC to sack Mr Packham, who is in Edinburgh to talk about his memoir Fingers In The Sparkle Jar.
They say his attacks on shooters, and other comments such as a tweet that farmers involved in a badger cull were ‘brutalist thugs’, breach BBC rules on impartiality.
A BBC Trust decision after complaints from the Countryside Alliance and the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is due next month.