If you’ve got a spare five minutes it would be well spent listening to this radio interview on yesterday’s Farming Today programme on BBC Radio 4. (Starts at 7 min 50 sec)
It pits Ian Thomson (Head of Investigations, RSPB Scotland) against Duncan Thomas (BASC) discussing the ongoing illegal persecution of birds of prey on driven grouse moors.
It’s a masterclass from Ian, who bats away Duncan’s witless nonsense with ease.
Meanwhile, Chris Packham’s petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting is currently on 87,000 signatures – it needs 100,000. If you can help, please sign here.
[Ian Thomson speaking at this year’s Hen Harrier Day in Derbyshire. Photo by Ruth Tingay]
Raptor Persecution UK 
Well done Ian!
Duncan…..”I dont care what he says but I have to read this bit of paper” ….Thomas. You aint selling your shit very well….
A typically wormy answer and retaliation from BASC. They show no intention to stop the crimes, just continuing to make excuses. No admission of the presence of criminals on the moors.
Their community is such that they continue to hide and protect the criminals.
I could not contain my anger if confronted by people like that from the BASC or any other shooting industry.
They’ll be finding: “naturally occurring poisons, killing raptors”, “meteoric lead from outer space, killing birds”, “Traps evolving from heather because of global warming”, “even suggesting bird lovers killing raptors and planting corpses to incriminate the moorland owners” and who knows what other excuses they will come up with. Were they once employed by the Daily Star a, “purely fiction”, tabloid?They wouldn’t do that would they?
Brilliant interview. But why do some people want to shoot birds for fun , knowing the distress that it causes.
no he was once employed by Lancashire police as a wildlife crime officer! As such he will claim he was a success in anti poaching but then poaching isn’t a wild life crime its treated as a property crime. The only people pursued by Thomas as a WCO appeared to be the very people trying to protect persecuted raptors. He was a bloody disaster.
Not surprised Ian won the day as he was by far the best speaker at Hen Harrier Day.
Many years ago I saw a male hen harrier on the fringes of Wearfale. Sadly xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx there are no more hen harriers in Wearfale
Well done Ian but anybody with a little common sense could get the better of Duncan Thomas he knows nothing about wildlife apart from how to kill it and he is so blinkered it’s unbelievable
100,000 passed at 19:33. Well done folks!:)
100,000 signed, well done guys
Well anyone who associates Shooting with Conservation must be an idiot, unless he proposes shooting the shooters.