Animal Aid, a campaigning animal rights group, has today published a report on grouse shooting called Calling the Shots.
According to the introduction, “Calling the Shots is aimed at alerting the public to the truth about an activity that has so far enjoyed a benign reputation, even though it is based on extensive wildlife and environmental destruction“.
We haven’t read the report in detail yet, just skimmed the contents. We did notice a great deal of reference to Walshaw Moor in the Pennines. The Walshaw Moor affair is a topic that has received intensive and prolonged scrutiny from Mark Avery (see here), but we didn’t notice any credit given to Mark in this report – that’s disappointing.
Download the new report here: Calling the Shots (Animal Aid report 2013)
Raptor Persecution UK 
Mark Avery was not disappointed. Read his blog for today.
Sorry Kit, having now read the report it is quite disappointing, in places. Please note, Dean Barr was not convicted of poisoning raptors – that was the whole point – he was convicted for POSSESSION only – nobody has ever been charged for poisoning those three golden eagles and a sparrowhawk that were found on the estate where he worked. Fundamental errors like that lead to an inclination to question other statements that have been made in the report. Having said that, the economic information was interesting and useful for further research.
I too found the economic figures very interesting, the further £20 million paid out in England alone averages out at £148,000 to each of the 140 Estates. At a time when pig farmers are selling up old family run businesses because they cant afford the feed and Dairy farmers are selling up because they cant even cover the cost of producing the milk they sell I actually find the figures obscene. It would be interesting to see the tax returns from these estates to see what the public is getting back for their money. The publication is another step in the right direction