Following on from yesterday’s news that DEFRA has conceded the legal challenge from Wild Justice on the annual release of millions of non-native gamebirds (see here), it seems so-called journalists from mainstream pro-shooting papers are falling over themselves to report events inaccurately.
For example, this is how Colin Fernandez (Environment Correspondent!) of the Daily Mail has reported it:
The headline (and the second paragraph of the main text) is wholly inaccurate (and will undoubtedly be the subject of a complaint). Neither Chris nor Wild Justice ‘tried to ban the release of gamebirds into the countryside’ with this legal challenge. On the contrary, Wild Justice was seeking regulation, not a ban. Had the ‘Environment Correspondent’ and the headline writer(s) at the Daily Mail bothered to do their homework and actually read the details of the legal challenge, they would have seen that it was about whether DEFRA was required to undertake assessments of the ecological impact of releasing non-native gamebirds in to the countryside, and absolutely nothing to do with calling for a ban on gamebird releases.
And why single out Chris? This legal challenge was made by Wild Justice, not by Chris alone – why try and vilify him? It’s irresponsible reporting like this that results in death threats.
It’s not just the Daily Mail. Journalist Helena Horton at the pro-shooting Telegraph is also struggling to report with accuracy:
Again Chris has been singled out and again it is falsely claimed that he called for the ‘banning’ of gamebird releases.
And these people are paid to write this garbage?
It’s not the first time the Telegraph has been caught out publishing false information about Wild Justice (see here).
If you want to read an accurate report of Wild Justice’s latest legal challenge, try this account on the Wild Justice blog.
Raptor Persecution UK 
The very concept of the Daily Heil having an Environment Correspondent is proving impossible to get my head round.
They wouldn’t report the truth if their lives depended upon it. If Wikipedia won’t allow the Fail as a reliable source it says it all really.
The Daily Fail !!!!! Its reports like that always naming CP that annoy me , where I work we have a book which CP wrote the foreword to and a customer just said Chris Packham ‘I cant stand him’ , oh dear I must be careful because I let them have it haha , I did say he is a personal friend of mine (Bit of a lie but hey) , I am only a volunteer so they can sack me if they like , I wont have a bad word said about CP or any of you :) keep up the wonderful work
It is hard not to conclude that supporters of the status quo with regard to shooting need to make it a personal issue about Chris Packham because they know that they cannot justify their stance by using facts and logical argument.
The Daily Mail is not completely indifferent to the plight of wildlife being victims of the shooters. Several years or more ago, the Daily Mail published an article with a large photo shot of the old King of Spain posing over an Elephant, a Cape Buffalo and other mega fauna from Africa. The old geezer was the President of the Spanish World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). I, and I am sure many others, cancelled my sponsorships of endangered species with WWF, and phoned them to explain why. The Daily Mail also sponsored a whole page, ever day, for several weeks, of an appeal to save the Tiger. It would be unfair to slate that newspaper and the Telegraph, completely, as there have been some very humane articles of animal welfare and conservation published in them. WWF once promoted trophy shooting as being contributive to local employment and income generation in parts of Africa and elsewhere, and as its member became more aware of this, I am sure many cancelled their support. No trophy shooter kills as an altruist, but as someone who has a perverted view of what real hunting is really about. This is the same as the hunting with hounds and their follower helots, mob, when they claim to be addressing a serious issue, of some old lady, living in her cottage and having her chickens threatened by Reynard. I used to get such drivel from people who looked far remote from helping old people, the latter being surrounded by Apache Dog Soldiers, determined to take their last mother chicken and her clutch.
Has no one explained to blood sports types about the furiously paced threat about to engulf the Earth and its life forms, like some Biblical wipe-out? Every advert break on TV has some kind of appeal to save an endangered species, especially the most frequent one from WWF appealing for us to help them save the Elephant, when, at one time they had a super killer of that animal, on display, proudly showing his highness had just shot one.
Chris Packham and his ilk, are heroes, and represent the decent and humane rising number of concerned people about how our planet is being mismanaged, and cruelly so. The task ahead is for our movement to eventually take down the cynical infrastructure that has dominated the countryside for centuries. We need a tide of change to install new industries and new, well-paid employment in our rural areas, to remove the subservience hitherto having been experienced, and to stem the flow of young people to the cities and abroad. We have a long way to go, when one considers how a Scottish Government, like the present one, having a belief that a protected site such as Coull Sands, can be given over to another USA millionaire investor for a golf course that could be built elsewhere. This is in a country whose politicians have to waken up and make it a world model for the humane treatment of animals, and the conservation and restoration of its wild environment, and not allow a biased Environment Minister to give a chum the go-ahead to cut down a stand of Scots Pine trees for a car park extension, and who also toadies to any “business” person who may want to impact negatively on the crown jewels of our natural environment.
As ever, fantastically put. Thank you.
For me, Chris Packham stands out like a shining star from the rest of the wildlife programme presenters. His bravery in telling things as they are is incredible and the mild manner in which he deals with the lies and name calling from those who seek to keep the status quo is something to truly admire.
Thank you Chris Packham. Thank you Ruth Tingay. Thank you Mark Avery. You are all an inspiration.
Firstly, Well said Mr. Hart.
The demonisation of Chris Packham may well come back on those involved. Our society is in the middle of dramatic change and as time goes on the truth of both CP and the environmental movements will become increasingly evident. This is simply part of the process we are undergoing.
“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
The Fail and Torygraph are only interested in selling papers in a falling market. So they appeal to their readers in whatever way they think will please/sell papers. At times they will appeal to their bunny hugger readers with sob stories about animal abuse, at others they will stir up those of their readers who carry out animal abuse. Confusing fact with fiction, deliberately or otherwise, is of no concern to them.
This is a deliberate strategy in an attempt to target and demonise the most high profile representative of Wild Justice just as these publications do elsewhere with individual politicians. They will maintain the drip, drip of bile and disreporting (burying a subsequent apology on an inside page) on Chris Packham until it becomes the norm and certain members of the public will come to believe that he is anti everything to do with “traditional” British pursuits.
Please don’t put this down to misreporting or lazy journalism, it is actually a part of a covert well-coordinated campaign against anybody who stands up to them.
P.S. supporting the preservation of “foreign” wild animals is simple and doesn’t interfere with their own preferred “field sports”.
Personalising the issue by making it all about Chris Packham is their only option as they can have no legitimate, logical or rational argument against the need to discover the impact of the release of so many birds on the environment nor the need of agencies charged with its protection to do so.
Standard, predictable, fare from the Daily Hate Mail and The Torygraph. Chris Packham is the anti-poster boy of the fun-killers, so it comes as no surprise that The Hate and Torygraph are doing their masters’ bidding by playing the man and not the ball. I wouldn’t wipe my arse on either of these bile-filled rags.
It is unfortunate that a rational argument that maybe we should look at the possible ecological effects of the relationship of the release of game birds into our countryside has been jumped on by the press and falsely headlined so to increase the sales figures of declining press sales. Firstly, it is interesting that the BTO are going to look at the release of pheasants and partridge and the possibility that birds of prey are higher in these areas due to a ample food source. (I doubt with the attitude of some gamekeepers this could be the case!) This was mentioned in their latest quarterly magazine.
Further, from my own observations of cover crops and the supplemented feeding feeding station bring in a large variety of small birds, which would be a viable food source for sparrow hawk and others. Also, rats are a common sight in release pens because of the ready food source. I remember a long time ago reading an American science paper about Owls and release pens in The States, it was discovered that where Owls were Controlled they had a rat problem, whereas, were no controls were in place, very few rats. The surprise of the researcher was that in nearly all pens no game birds were taken by the owls, pellet analysis been their measure.
I have been a birdwatcher for sixty years, which tried shooting game. This was so I could see and listen to their arguments, and have remained friend with most. I only now shoot with a camera, I felt I should qualify my view point,
.Numbers of wood mice also increase the closer they get to pheasant pens which is also because of increased food resources. Wood mice are the most effective vector for Lymes Disease … second only to .. yes … pheasants. The mice ensure the repeated re-infection of pheasants while the birds carry the infected ticks … be they larva, nymphs or adults … far and wide.
Ticks are a problem for lots of wild mammals. This is the view of the GWCT as regards the situation on grouse moors but I would imagine that the same animals mentioned in the commentary can spread ticks, larva or nymphs to pheasants and vice versa.
“The GWCT does not conduct research specific to deer population control. Our position is largely structured around our research into tick control, which is our most relevant work with deer as a component part. Our research suggests that:
Deer are the likely driver behind the UK’s increasing tick population (Scharlemann et al 2008).
… we are still researching the questions of how many deer and hares are too many and how many sheep are enough as regards effectively controlling disease in red grouse. This work is under way on a number of moors across Scotland.”
‘Lyme Disease Action’ comments on deer and ticks here…
https://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/press-releases/lda-questions-the-role-of-deer-in-the-spread-of-lyme-disease/
I wonder if DEFRA will be considering the number of pheasants hit by cars, whether anyone has any data, whether such data should be gathered.
I’ll express an interest. I hit one on Friday, it clearly didn’t look before crossing the road, I was doing 30 in a 40 limit, and I would like to contact the pheasant’s owner about potential costs to me.
Seriously, though, forty million must make for a lot of road encounters.
“He (CP) founded Wild Justice and has banned crow and pigeon shooting in April”!
If only Wild Justice had the power to ban anything! Lazy amateurish statements.
Questioning the impact and ecological ethics of current practices is asking those with the authority to review the status quo and act to revise it if necessary.
Even if the releasing of gamebirds had a positive numbers impact on some predator species, birds of prey, that is not a good reason to carry on in the same way.
I take the viewpint – ‘If they are so wrong about matters of which I have some awareness, as here, can I trust them on subjects like economics and international news, of which I know so little’.
I suspect they haven’t really thought this through.