Month: August 2017

Slightly away from our usual blog topics, some of you may have seen a full page advert in some national newspapers today, placed in the form of an open letter to RSPB Scotland (see: Times Coalition advert) by a consortium of companies hoping to be involved in the construction and/or operation of a massive offshore windfarm. This follows news yesterday that RSPB Scotland has lodged papers at the Supreme Court, seeking leave to appeal a previous Court of Session decision that reinstated Scottish Government consents for the development.

While we’re not qualified to comment on the rights or wrongs of the proposed development, some of the media commentary on the back of the advert is particularly interesting.

In a front page article in the Scottish edition of The Times, as usual protected by a paywall, journalist Magnus Linklater says that the RSPB’s suggestion that the 64-turbine development off the Firth of Forth would threaten local populations of seabirds, was made despite a “detailed environmental survey commissioned from the British Trust for Ornithology, which estimated that the turbines would harm no more than 100 gannets a year”. The article goes on to suggest that the companies behind the proposed development say that the impact of the scheme would be “marginal”.

Linklater suggests a significant role played by the BTO in undertaking survey work to inform the developers’ case. Interestingly, the figures in the Scottish Ministers’ own assessment seems to markedly contradict the “100 gannets a year” figure attributed to the BTO by Mr Linklater. According to the official assessment, the cumulative impact of this development is to harm 1169 gannets a year, considerably higher than the “no more than 100 gannets a year” quoted by Linklater, and it appears that a good few other seabirds are predicted to die every year as well. Check out the ‘Cummulative’ column in this table from the Scottish Ministers’ official assessment report:

Perhaps the BTO will clarify this huge discrepancy in the number of birds predicted to be harmed?

However, it is perhaps the editorial piece in the same paper that is of considerably more concern. It suggests that the RSPB is “stepping outside its charitable brief in mounting a legal challenge to Scottish minsters” and goes on to say that “nothing in the charitable guidelines within which it operates sanctions this kind of campaigning”.

We beg to differ, as does an excellent article here (well worth a read). This Times leader has got a sinister stench not dissimilar to the Nasty Brigade’s ongoing campaign against the RSPCA in an attempt to prevent prosecutions under the Hunting Act. It’s pretty clear to us that campaigning to stop the predicted deaths of thousands of seabirds is exactly what the RSPB should be doing (alongside all their other stuff, of course).

Given this, why on earth would a journalist want to portray the RSPB in a bad light, suggesting that it’s threatening jobs and opposing the rights of parliament? Why would a journalist quote erroneous data to support their assertions? Could it be that this was seen as an opportunity to mount an attack on the RSPB by a regular apologist from another sector that frequently tries and fails in this very tactic?

Mr Linklater has a long history of voicing negative opinions about the RSPB or writing pro-gamebird shooting/anti-RSPB articles in the media (see here), and its not the first time he’s come out with some fake facts (see here for a summary). Interestingly, George Monbiot wrote about this anti-RSPB bias five years ago, and also drew attention to the fact that Mr Linklater is one of three trustees of a sporting estate in Scotland. Surely a grouse shooting apologist wouldn’t misrepresent the BTO? Oh, wait a minute – remember this?

Incidentally, in another depressingly one-sided, non fact-checked piece of ‘journalism’, anti-BBC, ex cricketer and You Forgot the Birds mouthpiece Ian Botham went off on one about RSPB in the Daily Mail on the Inglorious Twelfth. We haven’t bothered to read it all (because we’re still laughing at his recent car crash interview on BBC 5 Live) but we’re told that he claims that ‘the RSPB are like Venezuela’. We’ve heard that Venezuela is rather good for birds, so we’re sure that will please the RSPB.

Given that this upcoming court challenge is very clearly the RSPB standing up for birds that aren’t even raptors, we’re sure they’ll be waiting for Beefy’s ringing endorsement.

UPDATE 17 August 2017: Magnus Linklater and his fake facts, caught out again (here)

Dear oh dear. It’s only been six weeks since Michelin-starred chef Andrew Fairlie was told by Perthshire Council’s Food Standards Officer to stop referring to red grouse as being organic (see here), and yet now the Angus Glens Moorland Group Coordinator is claiming that red grouse are “100% organic“.

Lianne MacLennan was quoted in the Dundee Courier (Food & drink section, 12th August 2017) – see here. She also made an astonishing claim that “The progeny of the product can be traced directly – right down to which part of the hill it was bred and shot on, at which hour of the day and, sometimes even, by whom“.

Really? That might be true if the grouse is immediately cooked at a shooting hut on the day, but for the hundreds of thousands of grouse that are sold on to game dealers, that is patently untrue. We know, because we’ve previously bought red grouse from several game dealers (to test it for lead shot) and in each case, the game dealer was unable to tell us even from which county the bird originated, let alone which estate, which moor, which hill slope, what month, what day, what time and by whom it was shot.

Here’s a quick recap for Lianne about the organic status of red grouse, because either she missed it first time around or has chosen to ignore the facts and just lie:

According to DEFRA’s guidance on organic farming,

• You must register with an organic control body if you’re going to produce, prepare, store, import or sell organic products;
• You’re breaking the law if you call a food product ‘organic’ if it hasn’t been inspected and certified by one of the UK’s nine organic control bodies.

We know from our earlier research that there isn’t a single grouse moor in the Angus Glens (or anywhere else in the UK for that matter) that is registered/certified as an organic producer. Therefore, red grouse cannot be described as being organic, nor “100% organic”.

We also know that red grouse may contain any or all of the following:

• Excessive quantities of toxic poisonous lead (sometimes over 100 times the lead levels that would be legal for other meat – see here)
• Unknown quantities of the veterinary drug Flubendazole (see here)
• Unknown quantities of the veterinary drug Levamisole hydrochloride (also used in chemotherapy treatment for humans with colon cancer – see here)
• Unknown quantities of the pesticide Permethrin (used topically to treat scabies and pubic lice; probably not that great to ingest) – see here
• Red grouse may also be diseased with Cryptosporidiosis (see here).

Does that sound “100% organic” or does it sound hazardously toxic and potentially unsafe?

We also know that red grouse are not routinely Government-tested for any of these toxic ingredients. For some strange reason, all gamebirds are exempt from testing for poisonous lead. Gamebirds are not exempt from testing for illegal residues of veterinary medicines, although in 2015 we discovered that red grouse had never been tested because Government officials “didn’t know where to find them“. Last year, for the first time ever and only after considerable pressure from us, DEFRA’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate agreed to test shot red grouse for illegal residues of veterinary medicines. They managed to test a total of six birds (2 from Scotland, 4 from England) out of an estimated 700,000 shot birds, and they couldn’t even tell us from which estates these six birds originated.

Lianne is further quoted: “In recent years, supermarkets have taken to stocking grouse during the season“. That’s true, but she missed an important bit off the end – ‘but have since withdrawn the product due to concerns about meeting the requirements of their Responsible Sourcing Codes’.

Thanks to Mr Carbo for this cartoon:

For those who couldn’t make it to Hen Harrier Day in the Highlands, here’s a short video of the presentation given by Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations RSPB Scotland. Well worth 11 minutes of your time.

Last month the Scottish Mail on Sunday published some right old tosh about how game shoot licensing would threaten the livelihood of gamekeepers and their families (see here).

In one of the articles, a comment piece by gamekeeper’s wife Carrieanne Conaghan (who, we’ve since been told, works as a sales rep in a publishing house in Grantown-on-Spey – if that’s true it was a bit disingenuous to claim that her family’s livelihood is reliant on game shooting), various unsubstantiated claims were made about the motivation of the estate licence petitioners (Logan Steele & the Scottish Raptor Study Group) as well as the usual denials about the unbridled criminality associated with the grouse shooting industry.

Logan Steele asked the Scottish Mail on Sunday if he could write a comment piece in reply. His request was denied (see here).

No problem. The Scottish Raptor Study Group has published its own response. Here, in their own words and without editorial censorship, are six moorland mythbusters, in response to the most commonly cited myths from the game shooting industry:

1. ‘Game bird licensing is unnecessary’
The failure of the intensive end of the game shooting industry to operate within the law over 60 years has led the Scottish Government to propose that game bird shooting licensing should be considered, along with other measures in an effort to eradicate the illegal, endemic and widespread killing of raptors. Licensing would set out clear standards required for this land use in the public interest, as applies also in other areas of natural resource management such as for water, wild fisheries and deer management in Scotland. No industry should rely on law-breaking to exist. Self-regulation has been given more than a chance to succeed and has not delivered and in the circumstances it is right that the Scottish Government should act in the public interest. . The concept is simple, if shooting estates abide by the law then no one has anything to fear, break the law and you stand to lose your licence to shoot. The only threat to livelihoods is from those individuals who are willing to take a chance and break the law. Any suggestion that a dead raptor or illegal trap could be ‘planted’ by a third party to make an estate lose a licence is simply scaremongering – there would have to be a clear evidential link to estate employees being responsible for any offences before a licence withdrawal could be considered.

2. ‘Incidents of illegal killing are declining’
The number of confirmed cases of persecution fluctuates markedly from year to year so comparing results between years is statistically invalid, particularly when the number of cases found will represent only a small but variable proportion of the actual number of crimes being carried out – the ‘tip of the iceberg’. A more robust means of identifying trends in persecution is to look at regional or national population studies of birds of prey, where a significant weight of peer-reviewed science reveals a more accurate picture. For example, recently published scientific reports on red kite, peregrine, hen harrier and golden eagle all provide clear evidence of populations constrained well below natural levels in areas where red grouse shooting is the predominant land use. The recently-published study on satellite-tagged golden eagles, commissioned by the Scottish Government, showed a similar pattern to recent raptor persecution cases, with a third of young tagged golden eagles disappearing on, or close to, land managed for intensive grouse shooting. Few of these birds were found, so they will not appear in any published statistics.

3. ‘Grouse moor management is good for a wide range of bird species’
In much of eastern and southern Scotland, heather moorland is intensively managed to maintain a patchwork of a variety of ages of heather to help create the ideal habitat for red grouse. However, most driven grouse moors are managed with the sole purpose of producing an unnaturally high abundance of grouse to be shot, and on many of them any species which is perceived to pose a threat to this is removed. Potential predators are killed, either legally (e.g. stoats, weasels, foxes, crows and magpies), or illegally, protected birds of prey. While legal predator control can
undoubtedly protect a variety of ground-nesting bird species, such as curlew and golden plover, the overall bird and mammal fauna present is often impoverished. However, with some estates now employing methods, such as the use of gas guns, to deter ground nesting birds of prey, it is likely that wader species will equally be deterred from nesting.

4. ‘Raptor populations are increasing’
In the last 30 years or so, several raptor species have enjoyed a recovery in their fortunes following decades of persecution. These include buzzards, now common in the lowlands, and ospreys that have seen significant investments in nest protection schemes. Other species have been aided by reintroduction programmes, such as red kite and white-tailed eagle. On driven grouse moor areas, however, hen harrier, peregrine and golden eagle remain well below optimum numbers, and in some areas are now regionally extinct, with persecution being the main cause. The Scottish hen harrier population declined by 22% between 2004 & 2010, and by a further 9% between 2010 & 2016.

5. ‘Conservationists want to bring an end to bird shooting’
So long as game bird shooting remains a legitimate activity i.e. it is conducted within the law and sustainable environmental management practices are employed, there is no conservation reason to stop it. What clearly needs to end is the illegal activity and environmental destruction apparently deemed necessary to maintain the intensive driven grouse shooting industry, and this is at the heart of the so-called ‘grouse/raptor’ controversy. Environmental damage includes the bulldozing of hill tracks; the burning of heather on active blanket bog and deep peat deposits which releases carbon into the atmosphere; the drainage of blanket bog habitats to promote heather growth which dries out peat and increases run-off after periods of heavy rain, risking flooding elsewhere in the river catchment area; and the unregulated slaughter of the mountain hare. An aspect rarely mentioned is the ‘accidental’ by-catch in traps of song birds and mammals such as wildcat and pine marten. Similarly, the widespread use of lead, long since banned in petrol, and paint, but still widely utilised in shotgun ammunition, creates environmental pollution and detrimental sub-lethal effects in scavenging birds and mammals.

6. ‘Jobs are at threat’
There is no reason why legally undertaken jobs should be threatened by licensing grouse moors and if shooting estates really believe that livelihoods are at risk because of adherence to the law then the question arises: ‘is the business sustainable’ either legally, financially or morally? In a speech to the Scottish Raptor Study Group’s conference in February 2017 the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform made the point that predation of grouse is a business risk that must be accepted and managed within the law. The strongest foundation for a secure and thriving rural economy in the future is a broad-based approach to land use, which optimises all of its natural assets, including birds of prey. The illegal killing of birds of prey and other unsustainable management practices prevents other rural development opportunities from being explored and realised, including wildlife based tourism, and selfishly denies local communities and visitors alike the right to enjoy seeing birds of prey in the Scottish countryside. Licensing grouse moors is an important step towards eradicating illegal persecution of birds of prey and creating a more balanced and healthy natural environment, with all the recreational and economic opportunities for Scotland that could arise from this.

ENDS