Year: 2019

The Scottish Government has recently launched a short public consultation, seeking views on a substantial increase of penalties for wildlife crime.

This has been a long time coming. Six years, in fact.

In 2013, the then Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse commissioned a review on whether penalties for wildlife crime should be increased, as a direct response to ongoing illegal raptor persecution. Professor Mark Poustie submitted his report and a series of recommendations, including a penalty increase, in 2015. The then Environment Minister Dr Aileen McLeod broadly accepted those recommendations in 2016 and the Scottish Government committed to progressing them in its 2017/2018 Programme for Government.

Now it’s 2019 and we have yet another consultation, although to be fair this consultation is short (opened 19th July, closes 16th August) and judging by this illustration doing the rounds via Scot Gov social media accounts, this consultation appears to be a formality:

Wildlife crime can include barbaric acts of cruelty and can have significant consequences for the
conservation status of protected species. Penalties need to be dissuasive and of personal significance to act
as a deterrent. Time and time again we’ve seen pathetically lenient sentences for raptor persecution that have offered zero deterrent effect and have been of no personal significance to the criminal (e.g. when a shooting estate pays their guilty employee’s fine or when the offender’s employment isn’t terminated) so as far as we’re concerned, a substantial increase in the available penalties is long overdue and would be very welcome. It would also bring Scotland more up to date with countries like Spain, whose Government is not only saying it has zero tolerance for raptor persecution, it’s backing up that claim with massive penalties for those convicted (e.g. see here, here and here).

However, the most significant aspect of these current proposals, as far as we’re concerned, is the five-year custodial penalty. This is big, big news because effectively it would mean that Police Scotland would now have the authority to apply for permission, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Act 2000 (RIPSA), to install covert cameras on private sporting estates for the purpose of detecting wildlife crime.

Currently, Police Scotland do not have the authority to seek permission to install covert cameras as part of an investigation simply because raptor persecution crimes do not merit a custodial sentence of three years or more. Authority will only be given if the activity is considered ‘proportionate’ and when the crime being detected is considered ‘serious’ (i.e. where the penalty would constitute a term of imprisonment for three years or more).

As we’ve seen in recent years, the RSPB has installed covert cameras at the remote nest sites of specially protected birds of prey and have recorded what is obviously a wildlife crime, but because the RSPB is a charity and not a statutory agency it is ineligible for RIPA/RIPSA authorisation so clever defence lawyers have been able to get cases thrown out of court on technicalities, and more recently some of these cases haven’t even reached court because the Crown prosecutors have decided the footage is inadmissible (e.g. see here and here).

As the legislation stands at the moment, it is not fit for purpose when it comes to detecting raptor persecution crimes in remote landscapes where the landowner may have a vested interest in the commission of that crime. If the Scottish Government amends the legislation to increase the maximum penalty to five years in prison, we would be very, very happy.

We’d encourage as many of you as possible to fill in the short consultation form and encourage the Scottish Government to press ahead with its proposals. Background info and the consultation itself can be found here. Don’t forget it closes on 16th August.

Just a word of warning to the Scottish Government, though. Even if stiffer penalties are applied to those who commit serious wildlife crime, and even if those penalties would be of personal significance to the criminal, their deterrent effect would still be minimal if the offenders still know that the chance of being caught in the act is so slim that this outweighs the risk of committing the offence in the first place. Hopefully the chances of being caught will be significantly increased if the police are able to use covert cameras, but those cameras will only capture certain crimes. There will be plenty of other crimes committed, away from nest sites and other fixed positions such as crow cage traps, and those offenders need to believe that police response times and follow ups will be timely and thorough.

Good grief, you couldn’t make this up.

A couple of weeks ago Mark Avery & Chris Packham were invited to participate in a question & answer session at this weekend’s Game Fair.

They’d been invited (and had accepted the invite) by Charlie Jacoby, someone who claims to be a journalist but who doesn’t seem to have any comprehension of the value of research, of fact-checking nor of libel laws. But that’s for another day. Jacoby’s shortcomings are not the subject of this blog.

Jacoby is hosting a series of talks, interviews and debates in the Game Fair Theatre and he wanted to drill Mark and Chris on the work of Wild Justice. It was all set to go, until Tuesday evening when Mark and Chris were told that the Game Fair officials had banned them from participating, after pressure from BASC, Countryside Alliance and GWCT – you can read about this on Mark’s blog (here).

It’s also worth checking out the statement issued by BASC, accusing Chris (and presumably Mark) of being ‘extremists’. It’s an odd accusation from an organisation that wrote a guest blog for Mark earlier this year (here)!

Many are seeing this as a massive own goal by the game shooting industry (because it is! What are they scared of?) and there’s plenty of lively debate about it on social media. But there’s also something else that might have contributed to the organisers’ decision.

Check out this email, screen grabbed from a dreadful video by Jacoby who was trying to explain to his viewers why the Game Fair organisers had scuppered his plans for a debate:

The email is from Jacoby, sent to Tim Bonner (CEO Countryside Alliance), James Gower (Managing Director of the Game Fair), Ian Bell (CEO BASC) and Teresa Dent (CEO GWCT and Natural England board member).

Ignore the uninformed (and wholly inaccurate) commentary about Panorama and town hall events – these are simply a figment of Jacoby’s paranoia and Mark will be blogging about this later today.

But check out that statement we’ve underlined in red:

“I agree we risk violence from shooters”.

Violence? From shooters? Surely not! Aren’t we repeatedly told that anyone with a firearms or shotgun certificate has to be an upstanding member of the community, to be of no threat to anyone’s safety, and certainly not to have a tendency for violence?

It’s an astonishing admission from the game shooting industry, that the mere sight of Mark and Chris at the Game Fair could trigger an explosion of violence from volatile members of this so-called law-abiding community.

Let’s hope the Game Fair organisers have good indemnity insurance if their audience includes so many hysterical homicidal uncontrollable thugs- just imagine the bloodshed if they run out of Pimms in the VIP tent or if someone spots a salad on the burger van menu. It’ll be carnage!

UPDATE: Just when you thought their PR car crash couldn’t get any worse……have a look at this (here).

Last Thursday non-profit organisation Wild Justice announced its latest legal challenge, this time against DEFRA for failing to assess the ecological impact of releasing millions of non-native game birds such as Pheasants and Red-legged Partridge in to the countryside every year.

The response from members of the game-shooting industry has been predictably abusive but also, in many cases, a furious backlash reaction to what they think Wild Justice is doing, rather than what Wild Justice is actually doing. For the avoidance of doubt, Wild Justice is asking DEFRA to carry out a review of the ecological impact of releasing millions of non-native game birds in to the countryside every year. Wild Justice is not taking DEFRA to court to ban pheasant and red-legged partridge shooting!

Anyway, back to those responses from the game shooting industry. Mark Avery has effortlessly sliced and diced the main responses (see here) and this is well worth a read. But there’s something else worth noting about the industry’s responses that can be expanded upon from Mark’s entertaining critique, and that’s the rancid stench of hypocrisy emanating from the critics’ mouths.

You’ll note that BASC has labelled Wild Justice’s latest legal challenge as ‘another extremist attack’ [on shooting] and the Shooting Times called it an ‘attack’ and ‘childish eco-politics’:

It’s worth remembering that Wild Justice is simply exercising a right to utilise an open, democratic process to challenge the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body. Not exactly the work of ‘extremists’ and not exactly an ‘attack on shooting’.

It’s also worth remembering that the game bird shooting industry has also exercised its right to utilise this open, democratic process to challenge the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body. And not just once!

For example, in 2014 gamekeeper Ricky McMorn requested a judicial review of Natural England’s decision to refuse him a licence to kill buzzards to protect his pheasants (see here). Mr McMorn’s case, financially supported by the National Gamekeepers Organisation (NGO), was successful. However, if you read the Shooting Times articles about his case (here and here), you won’t find Mr McMorn being accused of launching an attack, or of being an extremist, or of engaging in childish eco-politics. Funny, that.

Indeed, deputy editor of the Shooting Times, Joe Dimbleby wrote:

‘This landmark ruling should set a precedent for a more sensible approach to licencing. No doubt there will be outcry from the normal quarters, but the case has revealed the law of the land not being followed because of special interest pressure‘.

And then in 2016 Raeshaw Estate in the Scottish Borders took a judicial review against SNH’s 2015 decision to withdraw the use of the General Licence on Raeshaw Estate based on evidence that raptor persecution crimes had taken place there (see here). The estate lost its case in 2017. We couldn’t find any online news reports from the game shooting industry about this case and no mention of Raeshaw Estate (or its sporting manager, Mark Osborne) being accused of launching an attack, or of being an extremist, or of engaging in childish eco-politics. Funny, that.

We did find a job advert for a beat keeper at Raeshaw in the Nov 2017 edition of Shooting Times – we’re pretty sure that advert wouldn’t have appeared if the Shooting Times had a dim view of the estate or of Mr Osborne.

And then more recently (December 2018) three organisations from the game shooting industry applied for a judicial review of the Welsh Government’s statutory agency Natural Resources Wale’s decision to ban pheasant shooting on public land. Here’s a copy of the press release from BASC’s own website:

Incidentally, their application for a judicial review was refused because they’d applied too late.

We read a news report of this case in the 20 March 2019 edition of Shooting Times and there was no mention of the three organisations being accused of launching an attack, of being extremists, or of engaging in childish eco-politics. Funny, that.

Amusingly, BASC even records its participation in this failed legal action as a ‘Key Achievement in 2018’ (here).

It’s worth remembering these three legal challenges, and the outright hypocrisy of the game shooting industry the next time you see them accusing Wild Justice of being extremists for, er, also taking on legal challenges.

An even better way of showing your support for Wild Justice is to contribute to its crowdfunder to raise £44,500 to take this latest legal challenge all the way through the courts. So far over £24,000 has been donated. If you’d like to support this case, please click here.

Thank you.

GWCT (Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust) is at it again, deliberately publishing information is knows to be misrepresentative and misleading.

And not for the first time.

Back in March we blogged about how Andrew Gilruth, chief spin doctor at GWCT had blatantly and repeatedly misrepresented the RSPB’s position on grouse moor management by cherry-picking a quote, out of date and out of context, to trick the public in to believing the RSPB was supportive of grouse moor management (see here).

GWCT is apparently supportive of this approach to ‘science’ (ahem) as despite making three complaints about what we view as Gilruth’s deceptive behaviour, (two complaints directly to Chief Exec Teresa Dent and one complaint to GWCT’s general email account) all of them went unanswered.

Undeterred, GWCT is at it again, this time cherry-picking a quote that suggests the RSPB is supportive of game bird releases – this is part of GWCT’s response to Wild Justice’s latest legal challenge about the annual release of 50 million non-native game birds and DEFRA’s failure to assess the ecological damage caused. The first part of GWCT’s challenge has already been ripped to shreds here.

So, just how deceptive has GWCT been this time? Let’s have a look at a couple of its recent tweets:

The report being referred to by the GWCT is this: Report (RSPB) (Unpublished) Impacts of non-native gamebird release in the UK-review

Have a look at the General Conclusions and you’ll see from where the GWCT has cherry-picked the quote, but you’ll also see the context of the quote and all the information that GWCT chose not to promote, particularly the line, ‘There is also a significant and growing body of evidence indicating that the negative impacts of non-native gamebird release and related activities are considerable‘:

It’s also worth having a quick glance at the report’s Executive Summary – just ten seconds spent reading this and you’ll have a good idea of just how disingenuous the GWCT is being:

What’s also fascinating to learn is that apparently this research was done by the RSPB in collaboration with GWCT but when it came to publishing the research findings, according to one of the report’s authors the GWCT threw a bit of a wobbler:

The moral of this story? Don’t trust a word the GWCT says.

We’ll be passing on this latest example to the charities regulator.

Meanwhile, the crowdfunder for Wild Justice’s legal challenge, calling on DEFRA to instigate a formal assessment of the ecological damage caused by the unregulated annual release of millions of non-native game birds for shooting, is doing pretty well – it’s just past £23,000.

If you’d like to support the challenge, please visit the crowdfunder page here.

Thank you.

Wild Justice has launched its second legal challenge, asking DEFRA to assess the impact of releasing ~50 million non-native game birds in to the countryside every year.

You can read about it here on the Wild Justice blog.

If you’d like to support this challenge, please consider making a small contribution to the crowdfunder here.

Much more on this developing story in due course.

This is quite unbelievable, even by the low standards of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH).

SNH is ‘considering the merits’ of adding ravens to General Licence #2, which effectively means that gamekeepers and farmers will be able to kill as many as they like, on the flimsiest of evidence (i.e. nothing more substantial than an old wives tale required), without any accountability or reporting whatsoever.

SNH has slipped this news out quietly, probably hoping that nobody would notice.

Yesterday it was announced that SNH was opening up a 12-week consultation on its annual General Licences, a year earlier than planned following the successful legal challenge by Wild Justice of the General Licences in operation in England.

SNH’s press release said nothing about adding ravens to the General Licences, of course. It’s only when you start the consultation ‘survey’ and get a few pages in that you find this:

The Scotsman has picked up on this already and has an article today that includes a damning statement from Andy Wightman MSP:

“SNH is meant to protect Scotland’s natural heritage, but once again it has shown it is completely unable to stand up to vested interests. I hope that they will walk away from these ridiculous proposals to kill yet more wildlife and focus on stopping the epidemic of wildlife persecution that continues across Scotland.”

We probably shouldn’t be that surprised by this latest move from SNH, given that the Scottish Gamekeepers Association has lobbied for years to get ravens (and various raptor species) added to the General Licences (e.g. see here). The quality of the so-called ‘evidence’ in support of such slaughter schemes has been exceptionally poor, as you’d expect from those with a vested interest in killing everything that so much as looks at a red grouse. And seeing as SNH is supposed to base its decisions on scientific evidence, claims that ‘the sky is full of ravens’ or ‘a raven stole my baby’ shouldn’t really cut it but then this is SNH we’re talking about, who approved the mass culling of ravens in Strathbraan last year on the ludicrous basis of ‘seeing what happens‘.

We’ll be saying much more about this in due course but in the meantime please consider completing the consultation survey and expressing your views. The survey is available HERE and is open until 9th October 2019.