There was an article in the Daily Record on Saturday about the forthcoming grouse shooting season (the Inglorious 12th) which outlined many of the reasons that have triggered a call to ban the ‘sport’. The piece included extensive quotes from Mark Avery (see here).
SGA Committee Member Bert Burnett has obviously thought long and hard about the arguments against driven grouse shooting and he presented them on his Facebook page on Saturday night. Watch out for a new SGA fund-raising drive to purchase some new crayons for Bert.
On a related issue, he also shared his considered views on the Hen Harrier Day protesters who were due to gather in Perthshire the following day:
On a more serious and sinister note, when one of his Facebook acquaintances suggests that Bert should attend the protest demo, he said this:
It’s a perfectly illustrated example of why so-called ‘partnership working’ is nothing but a sham. It would also be interesting to know how Police Scotland view his comments when they assess his suitability to hold firearms and shotgun certificates. Threat to public safety springs to mind.
Raptor Persecution UK 
“Increasing habitat for all our upland birds and mammals” Can’t see how they can claim that as over the years they have almost wiped out the wildcat and others. They are doing their best to wipe out mountain hare, fox, stoats etc. and as for birds of prey, there are very few live ones left on grouse moors. They are a relic from the past, stopping the uplands of Britain from rejuvenating to a decree that would let all wildlife flourish. Grouse moors should, most definatly, be banned.
And there we have Bert, unwittingly providing the very sociopathic link I alluded to in an earlier comment.
This is followed by Bert’s false accusation that “they [Hen Harriers] are scared aff by the very folk that are attending the demo.” Again, persistently lying, believing their own lies, apportioning blame on innocent parties, and wanting to inflict pain and suffering on people for no good reason, are all traits of a sociopath.
Immaturity is another trait of the sociopath, and we have evidence of this with the pathetically childish drawing on the photograph of Mark Avery. Oh yes, and never learning from their mistakes is another.
However, it is interesting that Bert, or any of his sort, didn’t turn up to debate the issues. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that his arguments would be destroyed one after the other?
Funnily enough, I was reading about sociopaths last night (for an unrelated project) and was interested to read of the key behavioural traits of both sociopaths and psychopaths:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wicked-deeds/201401/how-tell-sociopath-psychopath
Some would argue that there is no difference!
Psychopaths have no control
Psychopaths have no way of knowing that they are psychopaths.
Just as stupid people are too stupid to recongnise their own stupidity.
He sounds about 12…
I wonder why he only lets “friends” leave comments on his posts? ;-)
I see he claims the the European population of hen raptors is “maybe hundreds of thousands”, when official data puts is a around 10k pairs. http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/UKSPA/UKSPA-A6-47A.pdf
Anyway, the Police Scotland contact page is here: http://www.scotland.police.uk/contact-us/ and Crimestoppers is here: 0800 555 111.
Just saying.
;-)
Also shows why we should all be temperate in our comments when we post on here – which mostly we are.
Is this the same Bert that claimed a few years ago that Sea-eagles were a growing threat to Scottish children??
That’s the one.
I got into a wee series of comment exchanges on the RSPB Scotland fb page with him re that and pointed out that whilst the SGA were making ludicrous claims about sea eagles they were doing their best to justify the maintenance of ludicrously inflated red deer numbers on stalking estates which were not only denuding the hills of trees, but also dramatically increased the risk of FATAL road accidents. This lot are completely and totally delusional, dangerously so. If there are any genuinely decent keepers out there then they definitely need to move to another job, gamekeeping is a sham profession and it’s their representatives, self appointed or otherwise, that are their enemy not the conservation community. They need to become genuine wildlife managers or rangers, something that Bert Burnett seems to think is a step down from keepering – yes he’s certainly deluded. The kid gloves have to come off, rational discussion is obviously an impossibility as the past few days have shown and the comments you get on shooting forums leave you wondering if there is hope for the human race. Can we afford to be restrained for the sake of a very few decent keepers when the vast majority seem to be hell bent on destroying wildlife, sometimes just to piss off wildlife lovers, and vilifying the RSPB and anybody who cares?
The Angling Trust another cowboy organisation tries the same tactics with canoeists. They say, that they own the rivers and all the fish and that canoeing is illegal because it disturbs fish.
Little known fact that fish are not disturbed by a hook in the mouth and being dragged out of its environment.
When otters or the occasional seal appear, the call for killing them comes from the Angling Trust because they are eating their fish????
All we need now is the shooters and gamekeepers to say that the birds enjoy the shooting and do it willingly without pain and suffer no cruelty.
Foxes, of course, enjoy being chased and killed by packs of hounds according to the “hunters”.
It is so insane that these folk think they have a right to kill anything and I believe that humans would be in their sights if the law was not against it.
I hope I don’t get censored for this but it openly available on the hunters and anglers sites.
Yes! Why has the Angling Trust and the Tweed Foundation went to extraordinary lengths to stir up fears of beavers returning to British rivers, whilst conveniently missing the implications of the EMBER report. Management of grouse moors lowers water quality, the abundance of aquatic life, more siltation, raises acidity and likely exacerbates spates. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think these are good for fish or fishing. Imagine trout and salmon redds more likely to get suffocated in the yuck coming off burnt moors.These organisations aren’t doing their jobs and in fact neither are the CA, SLE, GWCT, SGA etc who don’t forget also have the interests of that other country pursuit angling as part of their remit. As angling is the biggest ‘fieldsport’ of them all they have seriously failed by deliberately avoiding the topic altogether, making assessment of scale of problem and potential for mitigation impossible. They’ve clearly buried issue of interest to hundreds of thousands of anglers to avoid the embarassment of the grouse moors and a few thousand grouse shooters. They’ve dug a big hole for themselves, having a conflict of interets is one thing, a cover up relevant to a very large proportion of those they purport to represent is another and could REALLY make things sticky for them. I’ve pasted in a reply I’ve received from an angling organisation about this (I’ve taken out their name) – legitimate point to hit estates and apologists with, hard.
Dear Les
Thank you for your email of 29 July 2015.
I have forwarded your email to the solicitors here at XXXX XXXXX and they have found some of the points raised to be interesting and will likely be reviewing the EMBER report as suggested.
We just wanted to relay our thanks to you for bringing the points you raised to our attention. It is beneficial to have people like yourself who take an active interest in environmental issues and equally take the time out to relay concerns to bodies such as XXXX XXXXX.
Kind regards
XXXXX
A song title springs to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ1a3TUq6v4
I guess you have to feel a little sympathy for them.They probably really do believe what they are saying and it is never easy to admit you are wrong.And like children they will keep stamping their feet! We need to keep to the facts and allow them to expose their lack of knowledge and bias.
That is pure abuse. I doubt he even know what it means.
We shouldnt be surprised that this sort of abuse appears – after all we are calling for them and their “profession” to be swept away..They get to work in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world with some of its most stunning wildlife [and then they kill it!!], lording it over anyone who wants to take a walk there and given respect by equally deluded toffs and wealthy wannabee landowners….who would give all that up easily?…But if any of you feela touch of sympathy for their “plight”..please remember the entire communities of miners, shipbuilders and steelworkers who were all thrown on the scrapheap in the last 50 years in Scotland..for far less reason than this litany of criminal behaviour and overwhelming arrogance.
Dave, if only we had a ‘like’ button!
What a thoroughly pathetic individual. Having got to know the estate in question and its raptors a little in recent years, it is heartbreaking and disgusting to hear the lies being peddled by the SGA and the estate spokesman. How low will these people go to defend the indefensible?
The man doesn’t understand how an ecosystem works, this type of person is ignorant and probably didn’t stay on at school. Why do they always play the Waders card. What bloody wading birds, I’ve been on the Uplands and there’s nothing there, apart from Meadow Pipits & the odd Kestrel. They have nearly wiped out all life apart from Grouse. Don’t the idiots realise if you wipe out one species this affects the whole food chain down to insects & flora & fauna. Bert you are not managing the moors, you are destroying them, they managed themselves very well before your lot started messing with them!
Well said.
It’s only just occurred to me that people like Mark Avery who openly speak out against this ‘sport’ may in fact be very brave. There are clearly plenty of fanatics on that side of the fence, and obviously people of considerable power and influence. When you see the kind of hatred, for example, shown by some in the pro-hunt brigade towards sabs, no wonder some campaigners prefer to remain anonymous.
And Bert’s favourite athlete is…………..Ian Botham ……..what a surprise.
FYI, the “set fire to them” comment has gone. I’ve been chatting with Bert on FB, and to be fair to him, he seems quite sensible – it’s the others attracted to his page who are more extreme.
The ‘set fire to them’ comment is still there as of 7.20 pm this evening.
My first encounter with Bert was many years ago while I lived on the estate that he gamekeepered. Rightly or wrongly my then 14 year old stepson wanted to make some money be beating for him just after Xmas time. He went once and only once when he witnessed a fox being chased and torn apart by the accompanying dogs to the loud cheers of the adults on the shoot. I also used to watch Bert arrive every night prior to the duck shooting season when him and his dog dutifully herded the semi-domesticated ducks back to the pond where they were to be shot some weeks later. (wild duck shooting I think it was advertised under) Not long after I had moved from the estate I noticed letters from him appearing in the Dundee Courier viciously attacking both the RSPB and various anti-shooting lobbies. However, though his address was correct, there was no mention of him being Chairman (I think it was chairman at that time) of the SGA and it appeared that he was a person with no vested interests present. Thinking this was below the belt I dutifully wrote my own letter to the newspaper which allowed the readers to see who this gentleman really represented at that moment in time and balance his comments in light if that fact. Though Bert and I have not met face to face since that time he felt it his duty to give my full name to comments I left on the Understanding Predation website … fair doo’s I reckon lol. It’s touching to see that I still exist in his memories. I visit Bert’s FB site on a fairly regular timescale to see whom and what he is being nasty too at the present time and was very surprised to note that a person I knew to be a member of the SRSG a few years back was a “friend” of his and posting some positive comments regarding his status. I found his presence on that site distasteful in light of Bert’s abuse. I hope this has been noted and others informed. All that said I do believe Bert and his kind to be diminishing in numbers and can only hope that their total demise is not long in the coming.
P.S I don’t believe that I remembered to thank Bert for the many rainbow trout dinners I enjoyed caught in the small hill loch on the estate we both lived on .. so .. Bert .. if you have the odd look at this site ..thanks very much for the fish, they were very enjoyable.
Someone needs to remind him of his review appointment with his psychiatrist.
He is evidently not taking his meds!