Alert as saboteurs are urged to disrupt Glorious Twelfth
♦ The start of the grouse-shooting season will take place amid heightened security today as organisers fear disruption from saboteurs “fuelled” by campaigners such as Chris Packham, the BBC wildlife presenter.
Estates taking part in the Glorious Twelfth are anticipating an increase in incursions on to grouse moors and other protests.
The British Association of Shooting and Conservation (BASC) said local shoots were monitoring the activity of known saboteurs.
This year’s opening day follows interventions by Chris Packham, who earlier this month described grouse shooting as “moorland vandalism” and called for it to be banned. The RSPB, of which Mr Packham is vice-president, is leading a campaign to force grouse moor owners to seek licences for shooting, saying gamekeepers are killing endangered hen harriers, which feed on grouse chicks.
A demonstration is planned on Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire today against Bradford council’s licensing of grouse shooting on the land. A march to Downing Street organised by the League Against Cruel Sports, is also planned. The league says grouse shooting leads to the “persecution” of other species on moorlands.
August 12 – the Glorious Twelfth to grouse shooters and the “inglorious” to others. I see grouse shooting through the eyes of someone who does not shoot but who loves wildlife and wild landscapes. I am not a birder or a “twitcher”; I am an old-fashioned conservationist who sees a link between responsible shooting and conservation. Grouse moors and red grouse are a large part of that, and I love them both.
Yet the cry continues: “stop driven grouse shooting”. It really means “stop the toff ”, for grouse shooting is thought to be, quite wrongly, a preserve of the posh.
Last July in the beautiful Teesdale countryside, I accompanied Lindsay Waddell, the former chairman of the National Gamekeepers’ Association – he was showing me numerous lapwings, curlews, red grouse and black grouse with their young. As the British countryside shrinks with over-population and development, the 3.5 million acres of grouse moors have become the last retreats of some of our most beautiful and endangered game and wading birds. Research recently conducted by Newcastle and Durham universities shows that grouse moors managed for shooting have far richer bird populations than other moors.
There may have been ring ouzels in Teesdale too if the vulnerable fledglings had not been predated. The RSPB stance on predation is “minimum intervention”. Yet three years ago, when a variety of guards were watching a hen harrier’s nest in the Peak District, suddenly there was panic – the hen harriers were in danger – “intervene, intervene”; the young were being eaten by a pair of buzzards.
The hen harrier has become the icon of some birders who seem unable to understand the words “hen-harrier” which also meant that the bird was not popular with crofters, cottagers and peasants long before game shooting became a sport. The RSPB claims that there should be at least 300 pairs in England alone – more than there has probably ever been. Yet, this year just three pairs have nested in England. There may be some interference by a minority of gamekeepers, but the biggest culprits are foxes, badgers and badly managed moorlands – where are the hen harriers on Dartmoor or Exmoor with poor unkempt heather?
Moorland birds of all types like the mosaic of low heather and high heather achieved with a mixture of cutting and controlled burning. Sadly some organisations, such as the National Trust, have restricted moorland management and numbers of many species have declined as a direct result.
An old farmer in the Peak District I have known for years is not happy with the continuing attacks on grouse shooting: “If ever it is stopped,” he says, “it will lead to the biggest wildlife calamity we have seen for years”.
Robin Page is chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust
follow Robin Page on Twitter @Skylarkwarrior; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion