The RSPB is calling for the licensing of driven grouse shooting in England after the publication of a new report it commissioned on the economic and social impacts of future options for grouse moor management.
I haven’t had time to read the report yet, which examines the current policy of grouse moor management and then considers the likely outcomes of three future options (do nothing, bring in a licensing scheme, or impose a ban) but here’s the report in full as well as a shorter briefing document:
The RSPB has also published two blogs today, summarising the report’s findings and offering an explanation for its preferred position on licensing rather than a ban:
Driven grouse shooting – what’s the cost? RSPB blog written by Dr Pat Thompson, RSPB’s Senior Uplands Policy Officer here.
Licensing driven grouse shooting: the case for change. RSPB blog written by Imogen Taylor, RSPB Policy Officer here.
The RSPB has also published a further short briefing document explaining why it thinks it’s ‘Time for Change’:
Raptor Persecution UK 
When will it ever sink in, the uplands are better protected by the majority of conciencious landowners who may shoot,but only when stock levels allow.
In the meantime round the clock protection of all species becomes without doubt a better environment to deliver much greater numbers of all rarer birds.
It would be better served by R.S.P.B being honest and accepting two sides of a fantastic story led by active landowners and their Gamekeepers.
I am fed up with uneducated whingers who posture on the sidelines whilst private funding produces better breeding results than R.S.P.B run reserves.
It appears that R.S.P.B feel management is a dirty word.
To control vermin for the sake of all rare nesting birds is a necessity to a proper improved balance.
By magnifying Grouse shooting as being detrimental when such a fabulous wealth of pluses is obvious… except to those who bury their heads in the sand.
Yes,their are bad apples…..but too few to wreck the good work done by others.
Now is a time for proper commonsense to try and bridge the obvious gaps.
Focus on the true picture,not fabricated class discrimination…….in short…Grow up or accept a road to nowhere with large tracts of vermin ridden estates,devoid of wildlife ,if left unprotected.
The choice is out there…where is the will to join a great success story , conveniantly buried by two faced hypocrisy.
That is my view.
I fail to see where conscientious landowners are in the majority, that is my view.
I am beyond weary of the endless whingeing of the driven shooting apologists. They don’t seem to grasp that they have brought the present level of criticism onto their own heads.
Pole traps have been illegal since 1903, yet they continue to be used. All birds of prey have been protected throughout the UK since 1954 except Sparrowhawk, which has been protected since 1967. Yet we get told of missing Hen Harriers, obviously shot eagles, and destroyed Peregrine nests every summer.
I question the use of licensing as a means of improving shoot managerial behaviour. It will cost time and money to implement when the evidence is plain that existing laws aren’t being obeyed.
Every other country where Willow Ptarmigan/Red Grouse is found in the wild sustains hunting without this medieval relic. It’s high time that the UK banned driven shooting, period
Line after line of baseless propaganda.
With FREE spelling errors
I have frequently seen 80+ species on RSPB nature reserves and, at Minsmere, over 100 species in a single day! Name one grouse moor where this is possible!
Very good point. These grouse shoots are business ventures so profit needs to be maintained to a maximum. Anything that even thinks of taking the precious targets will be targeted themselves. It’s the same with pheasant shoots in England. These places are void of wildlife which is a shame as the shoots seem to control all the woods and wilder areas not under food production. These areas are precious for wild life and they should not be subjected to gamekeepers killing everything in them. The RSPB seems to turn a blind eye to this stuff, I suppose it’s the Royal in the title as the royal family are some of the biggest shooters of the lot. RSPB reserves are nearly all coastal wetland areas.
Hi Patrick, the RSPB Investigations team don’t turn a blind eye, and are likely to take an interest in any local specifics information anyone can give them while we are all out and about.
I am not an RSPB member but (thanks to so somebody for pointing this out to me a while back) you don’t have to be one to help the Investigations. So I donate a regular small few quid directly to the Investigations side.
The appeal can be seen here:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/join-and-donate/donate/appeals/birds-of-prey-defenders/
I like to think that the RSPB top brass may take notice of the growing number of people like us who consider this matter a particular priority, above & beyond their generalist conservation work, etc.
Rob,
I understand your comments and why you believe the uplands are better protected by conscientious landowners.
My understanding is that the RSPB proposal to licence grouse should support these landowners.
The problem at the moment is that the shooting industry is unregulated, and that just allows poor upland management to exist alongside good upland management.
It also provides a blanket under which criminal activity can take place, without any real risk that the perpetrators will be caught or face sanctions.
Licensing if properly implemented could allow the game shooting to operate on a much more level playing field, where those poorly managed estates where criminal persecution of birds of prey takes place, or where wildlife management has become nothing other than persecution of certain species, find that they are unable operate if they wish to remain licensed. This could be good for the conservation of all wildlife and provide a far better way of ensuring a balanced and thriving ecosystem.
Whether the shooting industry wants to admit it or not, game bird shooting is predominantly a commercial enterprise where shooters are attracted to those estates which can provide an abundance of game birds to shoot. Licensing should not be something that well managed estates fear, but something which actually ensures they are not having to compete against others who through dubious means are able to produce higher concentrations of game birds, and thus offer more shoot days or greater bag sizes.
One only has to look at the problems faced by Hen Harriers, the continual reports of illegal persecution, and the lack of progress of this bird to increase its population to understand that the “bad apples” are wrecking the good work done by others.
I would suggest it is thus vital for the shooting industry to accept that the current position can not continue, and as the RSPB propose, for the government to introduce a meaningful licence scheme right across the UK. Hopefully this is something all sides can agree on? I would see this as a win for nature, and also a win for well managed shooting estates.
I could not have wrote that better myself. Totally agree with your statement.
Hi John, agree with all of that but I do chuckle to reflect that within most of the industry a poorly managed estate or an underperforming keeper is considered the mirror opposite of what you (perhaps knowingly?) describe it as. The economic model which induces estates to sell shooting on the basis of numbers of birds that will be shot, must be challenged by this regulation or it will fail. Also, it would be nice if Guns buying shooting developed a conscience, and the numbers of birds to be shot became just one of a number of equal elements to consider when deciding where to book up. But most don’t. And the “bigger” the man – in their own minds anyway, the bigger bags they seem to demand.
Modesty and restraint and moderation are the hallmarks of the timid, underperforming and penniless estates, seemingly. We are deep into a second “Edwardian Big Shoots” period in the history of British game shooting where size (of bag) matters above all else to almost everybody involved. Pure greed and pathetic on many levels.
Hi Spaghnum,
You raise a very valid point.
I agree licensing must challenge the current economic model whereby the shooting industry appears to judge estates and game keepers predominantly on the number of grouse, the number of shoot days and bag size an estate can offer. This appears to also be reflected in how shooting estates market themselves to prospective shooters.
Likewise I strongly suspect your description of how shooters rate themselves based on the number of birds they have killed, rather than on their actual shooting ability to cleanly kill a bird even when a bird presents a difficult shot, probably also holds true in most cases.
Changing this mindset will be a challenge, as it cuts deep into the commercial model of “more is better” which seems to dominate so much of modern economic and industrial thinking.
It is something I would suggest the shooting industry umbrella organisations really need to consider, so that estates are judged on the contribution they make to wider wildlife and environmental conservation, and shooters judge their ability not on bag size, but on their ability to make that clean kill when challenged with a difficult bird, so that they accept less birds to shoot, but value the marksmanship of those that they have killed.
Rob, can you justify, with evidence that ‘private funding produces better breeding results than R.S.P.B run reserves’.
Not so much “A few bad apples”, or indeed a big bad barrel of apples ; more a completely rotten orchard of Shooting Estates & their killer keepers. Driven Grouse shooting is underpinned by both organised crime & government subsidies, reliant upon burning, medicating, poisons, traps, snares & stinkpits.
DGS days have been numbered since Mark Avery’s book, “Inglorious” was published (have you read it?) a few years ago. It’s now high time to completely BAN this self-indulgent, sadistic bloodsport – Well worth reading both “Calls From The Wild” & “Cruel Intentions ” by the very knowledgeable & experienced Alan Stewart too. We need to respect “our” wildlife, not kill it for “kicks”.
#BanDGS
In Scotland the Grouse Moor Management Group (The Werrity Report) unanimously agreed to a licensing system, should things not improve (they haven’t).
Which members of that Group would you characterize as ‘uneducated whingers’?
Professor Alan Werritty (Chair)
Alexander Jameson
Professor Alison Hester
Professor Colin Reid
Professor Ian Newton
Mark Oddy
Brief biographies of each can be found here
https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20210415131742/http://www.gov.scot/publications/grouse-moor-management-group-member-profiles/
A great success story? Mm that will be why on the Moors managed for driven grouse shooting that I’ve been on, are barren lifeless places with excess numbers of one bird, Red grouse, the odd raptor and here and there a few waders.
Its not a few bad apples, its a systematic breaking of the law, gross overstocking and slaughter of any predator. The proper management of habitat and specific predator control for conservation purposes is a great deal different from the practices undertaken at most of the Grouse Moors I know of. Yes there a few enlightened landowners and estate managers, but to claim that criminal act are the behaviour of a minority is to deny the very clear evidence that this is not the case.
The ever intensification of Grouse shooting and a unwillingness to accept there is an issue, is the reason the pressure for proper regulation is mounting.
In view of Mr Smallman lecturing us with the muddled sentence…
“To control vermin for the sake of all rare nesting birds is a necessity to a proper improved balance.”
this is quite interesting…
“Kortland said these findings are particularly satisfying as the forests involved are also heavy in predators, which include birds of prey such as goshawk, pine marten, crows and foxes. That suggests capercaillie can survive in a rich, balanced ecosystem.
“The predator community has reassembled,” Kortland said. “Yet capercaillie are able to persist and in fact increase. We may have to accept a lower density of capercaillie but based on the evidence so far, it suggests they can coexist in the presence of predators. So that’s really quite exciting.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/17/capercaillie-bird-tentative-comeback-scotland
You’re the gamekeeper for a large pheasant shoot. What the hell do you know about ‘conservation’ or ‘biodiversity’, when your job is to look after a cash crop of non native species by annihilating any native species that interfere with the stock numbers? Your whole post is just ignorant projection. You haven’t read the reports, you haven’t educated yourself on the alternatives to this ruinous land use and you’re completely unwilling to listen to the facts concerning raptor persecution, which you just see as an occupational hazard. Your profession has no place in any type of forward thinking land use and will soon be consigned to the dustbin, so your idle threats about us having to “accept” or else are just that – idle.
“A few bad apples” is such a tiresome claim. 92 Hen Harriers have been found illegally killed or have disappeared on or near grouse moors since 2018, and those are just the ones that were satellite tagged, no doubt many more untagged birds met the same fate. This adds up to a lot of bad apples.
Law abiding estates and keepers would have nothing to fear from licencing and it would weed out the “few” bad apples so there’s no reason for a mostly law abiding shooting industry that delivers real conservation benefits to oppose it. The fact that they do oppose licencing shows that they have something to hide/fear i.e. either a lot of them don’t obey the law or grouse moors aren’t managed in a way that has conservation benefits.
“In the meantime round the clock protection of all species becomes without doubt a better environment to deliver much greater numbers of all rarer birds.”
Raptors are ‘rarer birds’ but grouse moor ‘management’ sees to it that their numbers are suppressed.
“I am fed up with uneducated whingers who posture on the sidelines whilst private funding produces better breeding results than R.S.P.B run reserves.”
You make claims as an uneducated whinger without producing the evidence that driven grouse moors have better ‘breeding results’ than RSPB reserves. You fail to even mention camparators regarding biodiversity.
“To control vermin for the sake of all rare nesting birds is a necessity to a proper improved balance.”
Yet you cannot explain why bio-abundance and biodiversity was greater before the gun and ‘vermin control’ was invented. So how did that ‘improved balance’ come about on its own?
“By magnifying Grouse shooting as being detrimental when such a fabulous wealth of pluses is obvious… ”
Are you referring to the downstream flooding, contamination, soil erosion, increased carbon emissions, lead pollution, disease, stink-pits, snares, poisons, trapping, illegal killing, by-catch and an artificial monoculture as a… ‘fabulous wealth of obvious pluses’?
Or, do you mean the money it makes?
Uneducated? Ban all shooting
Just fucking stop killing live things for personal enjoyment. Admire life as a marvellous experience.
Failing this shove your gun up your arse and do the planet a favour.
This is right up my alley! I’ll be reading this as soon as possible. As long as the other side can play the ‘banning driven grouse shooting will kill jobs and communities’ card and people actually believe it, politicians will be cowed and no matter how many raptors are pole trapped and poisoned, mountain hares massacred and land rotationally incinerated. When it comes to it they will back off from wanting a ban if they have a mental image of a gamekeeper being turfed out of their home wife and cherubic toddlers in tow. I was shocked to learn how many Friends of the Earth Scotland members absolutely hated grouse shooting for kindred reasons, but did not want to push for its end because they genuinely believed it would harm rural communities. I repeat these were Friends of the Earth Scotland members. Until the phony economic argument for driven grouse shooting is dismantled then its a great big brick wall we’re going to run into sooner or later no matter what it does to raptors and the land.
Talking about ‘banning’ or ‘dismantling’ established industries, however abhorrent they might be to you, just makes you a big fat target in any economic or social justice argument.
Abject nonsense ; sure same was said about the abolition of the slave trade – try reading Mark Avery’s “Inglorious”, especially Chapter 6 …
#BanDGS
Reading the report, I was surprised at how few jobs there are. A more mixed use of the land would create more
I think everyone is missing the point. Mr Smallman said “ conscientious landowners”. From which I suggest he acknowledges there are many who are not. This exists throughout life. We must learn to recognise (and applaud) the good whilst condemning the bad. This website has a reputation for fairness unlike some of its more hysterical people making comment, some of which are obscene, stupid or unachievable.
What you appear to have missed (aside from his use of the word “vermin”-always an indicator of ignorance) is the fact that his comment is a list of unsupported statements and blatant untruths.
I can’t believe that Rob is trotting out the worn out “A few bad Apples” line, he must know that one doesn’t work!
Licensing has got to be the best option but administration will be (to my mind) incredibly difficult. I can’t see a Tory Government providing adequate funds either!!
Indeed, the it’s a whole rotten “orchard” of DGS estates ; totally dependent upon tory subsidies, organised crime & killing so much wildlife both legally & illegally just so a few self-indulgent sadists can blast birds from our skies for “fun” – Beggars belief that it’s been tolerated this long. Still, on the plus side, Tory MPs are falling like grouse shot from the sky ; and a General Election looms on the not too distant horizon #BanDGS
I agree that there’s little or no chance of anything really changing under a Tory government. I’m looking forward to seeing if the other parties have anything in their about licencing manifestos at the next election. As a “swing” voter a firm commitment to licencing grouse moors could well persuade me to vote Labour.
Don’t let Party Politics sway your judgement. Labour has a much likelihood of clamping down on shooting excesses as any Conservative — and we have a North to South SNP split that also throws it’s commitments in this area into doubt — if Forbes, Regan, Ewing and their mates get their way.
It’s obvious that the shooting interests planned their big socio-political push for this point in time as the various campaigns gain traction. The hit on the SNP over the past few months is their big hope because they know they are the only party to show a long term sustained interest in our Highlands and the viability/fertility of our environment … as is fitting of their name. If the Highland Cabal headed by Forbes and her card carrying Conservative husband gain power to change policy internally the hope of any meaningful change in regards to shooting practises is dead in the water. Their interest in the welfare of the land and all in it will disappear and the financial terrier which is continually snapping at it’s heels will take every argument back to a financial — as opposed to economic — foundation.
The financial arguments will soon be redundant as the system undergoes huge change. Don’t allow the same set of folk to be in charge during the journey.