Why grouse moors deliver more nature – opinion from the hunters
Tim Bonner on “Why grouse moors, not the RSPB, deliver more nature”. This is a persuasively written piece of rank propaganda and is factually and massively incorrect. We have put this in the library in the hope that our members and subscribers will read this drivel and realise the enormity of our task. We have to educate and change hearts and minds. The article is a shocking propaganda piece for some of the wealthiest people in our country and an outdated and antiquated land management system. It also is taking a very unfair and unjustified pot shot at the RSPB. We need to ban driven gamebird shooting across the board.
{Earth and Leaf Editorial}
Tim Bonner on Why grouse moors, not the RSPB, deliver more nature.
Why grouse moors deliver more nature
The RSPB has renewed calls for grouse shooting to be licensed in England. Its justification is that apparently “many are calling for sustainable land management and more nature in our uplands”. That is a laudable aim, but what the RSPB does not explain is how regulation of grouse shooting might achieve it. More than that it is not clear why the RSPB would consider itself in a position to sit in judgement on management and nature recovery in the uplands. To say it has a mixed record on upland management would be generous and upland reserves like Vyrnwy in North Wales have become nature deserts after decades of RSPB management.
Meanwhile, the evidence continues to pile up to show that grouse moors are delivering “more nature”. For instance, Bolton estate in Wensleydale had 250 breeding pairs of curlew this year which dwarfs anything that the RSPB has achieved.
The RSPB’s continuing reluctance to admit the central role of predator control in management generally, and upland management in particular, is one of the key reasons it is less successful in delivering more nature than managed grouse moors. In other habitats, such as the islands of Orkney and Shetland, the removal of non-native predators has been central to the RSPB’s successful management for ground nesting species.
In Northern Ireland it has used fencing to exclude foxes and other predators from islands in Lough Erne which are critical curlew breeding sites. Yet, when it comes to landscape scale predator management in the uplands it will not accept the lessons that gamekeepers and grouse moor managers have learned over generations.
Further reading from Earth and Leaf . . .
Wildlife Trusts buy part of Rothbury Estate Northumberland ending grouse and pheasant shooting
The other side of the story is put robustly by the RSPB . . . https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/crimes-against-birds
Visit (Tim Bonner’s) amazing nature desert which supports a huge array of species . . . https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/lake-vyrnwy
Our conclusion on why Grouse moors deliver more nature – nope, they don’t