It’s been announced that Moorland Association Director Amanda Anderson will be leaving at the end of this year “to take on a fresh challenge”.
May be she’s seen the writing on the wall and is jumping ship after ten years of propping up this dying industry.
Amanda has been a strong influence in her ten years in post, particularly in her role as what I think of as ‘chief contortionist’ in the so-called ‘partnerships’ designed to crack down on the illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors.
‘Partnerships’ that haven’t managed to deliver anything at all of conservation value (e.g. Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative (here and here), Yorkshire Dales Birds of Prey Partnership (here), Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (here)).
Amanda has also given us a few classic quotes over the years:
“These birds [raptors] are there on these moors. I see them from my kitchen window” – from an oral evidence session at Westminster in 2016 prior to the first debate on banning driven grouse shooting;
and
“If we let the hen harrier in, we will soon have nothing else. That is why we need this brood management plan” – from an article in The Times in 2016, reported on Mark Avery’s blog here.
Her successor will have his/her work cut out to defend the indefensible. Let’s hope it’s someone with more credibility than the current Chair of the Moorland Association, Mark Cunliffe-Lister, who recently told BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today listeners,
“Clearly, any illegal [hen harrier] persecution is not happening“.
Perhaps all the upheaval at the Moorland Association explains why the organisation has yet to publish a statement of condemnation about the latest ‘disappearance’ of three more satellite-tagged hen harriers, all gone from driven grouse moors this month (here), or the damning figure of 101 missing/killed hen harriers, mostly on grouse moors, since the start of the brood meddling sham in 2018 (here).
Incidentally, I was sent an interesting note the other day about a comment that Amanda is alleged to have sent to Moorland Association members last week about hen harriers…I’ll blog about that shortly.
UPDATE 12 December 2023: Moorland Association appoints Andrew Gilruth as new CEO (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 
I used to think her predecessor, the MA secretary one Martin Gillibrand was at times bloody awful, at other times stupidly sometimes even funnily awful, especially when he lost it on camera during the “inside Story” piece about Bowland Betty as he was interviewed by Danny Savage. Rumour has long had it that is why he went and Amanda came in. Amanda always came across as more professional, even though she was often defending the same indefensible nonsense or indeed doing all those mental and verbal contortions. I’m not sorry to see she is going and hope her replacement is [Ed: I can’t publish that, Paul, although I like your description!]
Having had close dealings with the characters mentioned, I am filled with deep anger.
I would love to think we would get someone with a more balanced approach (trying to put it politely) but it’s hard to see why we would, given the nature of the organisation and their interests.
I’ve heard that Amanda is to become PR for the campaign to nominate Vladimir Putin for the Nobel Peace prize. Or… it might have been Trump… I get a bit confused.
“If we let the hen harrier in, we will soon have nothing else…”
I’m astonished how so many of these people have no understanding of even basic ecology! I wonder if they ever ask themselves why there aren’t billions of hen harriers and other wildlife victims of the shooting industry in all the other places in the country where they are not persecuted?
This neo-Malthusian idea that any species will proliferate ‘out of control’ without intervention by ‘mankind’ has been a persistent myth in the minds of ‘countrymen’ for far too long. It’s always delivered with the confidence of the ignorant, garnished by posh accents and tweeds, and seems to be lapped up by those who surmise that every living thing dies by predation – including apex predators!
It’s such a shame that media interviewers never seem able to challenge these absurd notions.
Yep, and nobody in media coverage ever challenges the basic ethical principle of shooting big numbers of grouse or paying for your day on the basis of how many you will likely shoot. When covered on TV nobody ever says, “how many are you shooting and why so many – is this not what is driving the conflicts?” That point is always accepted as a given (as if it is just not on the table for analysis or criticism) the debate then moves on to where it is now i.e. what species and in what numbers of wildlife it is acceptable to kill legally or illegally to achieve the requisite big bags.
If only it was the “done thing” among the privileged few to consider shooting twenty or thirty brace in luxury and good company to be a good day, and if only it were frowned upon amongst that set as a crude and unsporting thing to aspire to shoot hundreds (and many hundreds) of brace before they were content. Somewhere in a parallel universe (perhaps even another country) they are shooting in moderation and within the law, and there is no conflict with birds of prey.
Yes! It is very hard to understand the mentality that requires huge numbers of birds to be shot. I have no desire to shoot, myself, but I can at least conceive of how someone might enjoy a day in the countryside pitting their skills against challenging quarry but once they have shot a handful of birds it seems that going on shooting more and more just becomes an industrial process practically. The demand for large bags evidently drives the intensive management of shoots including the ultra aggressive predator control. No-one commenting here would mourn if grouse shooting gets banned but you would have thought that its proponents might see that their best chance of survival would be to follow a more sustainable model based on small bags shot in a less intensively managed environment.
[Ed: comment deleted as abusive]
“It’s such a shame that media interviewers never seem able to challenge these absurd notions.” Unfortunately the reality is that the majority of journalists (media interviewers etc.) have arts degrees and their understanding of even basic ecological questions, or just science in general came to an abrupt end after they had taken their GCSE’s.
Though not a journalist I have an arts degree and would consider myself a keen birder, avid naturalist and well-informed about environmental issues. Stereotyping never helps to advance an argument.
“Stereotyping never helps to advance an argument.”
Is it stereotyping or is it generalising? And who says we cannot generalise?
I have first-hand experience of appalling, basic, scientific knowledge, expressed by well-known leading national BBC journalists (who were covering up a political scandal involving bats).
Maybe she’s going to do PR work for Nadine Dories?
Again we read of the woes of a leader, xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx.
Unless someone with a knowledge of the history regarding game industry gets the role the same thing will continue to happen, and our birds of prey will continue to suffer.
With so much money on the table from the perpetrators, xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx how will our birds of prey ever be able to live in Harmony within nature?, the problem is clear and current, game shooting industry is just that, an industry, and all about maximising profit, and reducing the losses, greed is the route of all evil, not money, to be able to fill the bags to maximum is their ultimate goal, so anything that could reduce the numbers is removed.
I do not need to explain what removed means, brood meddling is one example, and illegal killing is the other method used.
I believe what is required is a strict enforcement of the laws, anyone interfering with protected species should be punished to the maximum amount, and this should not be limited to just the offender, but the industry behind them.
If there was a genuine risk of loosing their shooting licence they would have a vested interest in protecting the laws, and the birds of prey.
In my humble opinion, they should factor into their game bird release a few redundant birds in case a bird of prey is hungry, instead of killing the raptors to protect their income.
Shooting game birds is a rich person’s sport, and we all know they have no respect for anything that could hamper their enjoyment, or cost them a few pence, and they would much rather not have a challenge like a game bird being chased by a raptor, this would make shooting the bird much harder as the game bird can see its enemy, unlike when people stand waiting for a bird to be chased into the sky just in front of them.
Calling game bird murdering a sport is about as much as these people can achieve, after all they don’t have to search, or hunt, the birds are laid out like a conveyor belt, not exactly difficult is it.
Just like a pickpocket, they go to a place where the target is on a plate, a busy crowded area, where there is little room for coming away empty handed.
Perhaps what needs to happen is the game bird industry should be targeting plagues of rats instead, this would serve a purpose, and would be more of a challenge than just murdering slow moving fat birds which can’t fly for long.
When I look at game bird shooting I see nothing more than hare coursing, a gang of people chasing birds to their death, like a pack of dogs chasing rabbits, and hares to their ultimate demise, although more brutal in the end, similar because of the senseless waste of life.
To imagine birds of prey would overrun driven grouse moors if not controlled is just nonsense, I live in a very rural area, where apart from xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx we see a variety of different birds of prey, kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzards, Marsh harrier, and the odd red kite, and even a couple of white tailed eagles, and another rare visitor, osprey, I have never seen a hen harrier, or a goshawk, although they have been seen locally, this I know because a chap was recently taken to court after he xxxxx xxxxx 5 of them in a wooded area not far from me.
Now with that said I do not believe any of the birds of prey, except the goshawk mentioned, have become a problem, nor have they become so over populated that there is an issue, regarding the goshawk incident, xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx.
I look forward with sadness to the next installment to this saga, and can only hope that whoever is appointed to the role will have an understanding of why birds of prey are important, more so that game birds.
I recently visited a zoo, in that zoo I saw many things which are now extinct in the wild, and can only be found in a zoo, this is troubling to see, and is possibly what it’s going to be like for birds of prey, will we have to go to a zoo to see a hen harrier?, will the moors be overrun with grouse to the point it impacts our native creatures?, will our native birds survive into the future, will our children and grandchildren ever get to see a bird of prey on its natural environment?
[Ed: rest of comment deleted as off topic]