Last week, the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) posted a video and accompanying commentary on its website about a police investigation into a gamekeeper alleged to have been caught on camera placing ‘poisoned-laced pheasant carcasses’ next to a pheasant release pen in Berrington, Shrewsbury in 2022 (see here).
The HSA reports that its fieldworkers collected some of the pheasant carcasses and sent them to the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme for toxicology analysis and the findings were reported to West Mercia Police for investigation.
Screen grab from the HSA video showing one of the pheasant carcass baits slit open and containing an unidentified white powder substance.
The report on the HSA website states:
‘The gamekeeper’s house was raided by the authorities, and despite poisonous substances being found, there was insufficient evidence to prove these were the same substances found on the bird carcasses. Sadly this meant there was no chance of a conviction in this case. This does mean that we are now able to share this footage with you to highlight the grim reality of the shooting industry‘.
The HSA report doesn’t identify what substance was found on the pheasant carcasses during the toxicology analysis, nor does it identify the ‘poisonous substances‘ alleged to have been found by West Mercia Police at the gamekeeper’s house, so it’s difficult to draw conclusions about any alleged criminality.
However, I did find an entry on the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WIIS) database referring to an incident involving ‘pheasant baits’ in Shropshire in 2022. This is likely to be the same incident as the HSA is reporting but beware, there is a small element of uncertainty because the WIIS database isn’t always kept up to date and some incidents are known to be held back from publication whilst investigations are still live.
Let’s assume the WIIS database entry refers to the HSA case. Here is what the WIIS entry says:
Ref: 107/367: Shropshire, September 2022, categorised as ‘abuse’, 2 x pheasant baits & 8 pesticide samples. The narrative is given as follows:
‘2 pheasant baits found with white/grey powder inside them. Residues of permethrin were found on the pheasant baits. Analysis confirmed a mixture of pesticides which were found during a visit to a pesticide store. This incident has been assigned to permethrin abuse. There were also failings in the storage of a range of pesticides, some of which are no longer approved‘.
That last sentence is key. If banned substances were found during the police raid AND there were ‘failings in the storage‘ of them, this would normally be sufficient evidence for a prosecution for failing to comply with the regulations relating to the possession and storage of various banned chemicals, and associated health & safety regulations, as we’ve seen in other recent cases (e.g. here), even if there was insufficient evidence to charge for placing poisoned baits.
Further to last week’s news that there had been a revolt at the Hawk & Owl Trust by former members and volunteers over what they perceived as the ‘poor management’ of the Trust (see here), the protesters, who call themselves ‘Friends of Sculthorpe Moor 2023’, have sent the following statement.
NB:I’ve redacted some of this as I don’t have the background information that might support some of the protesters’ allegations so they may be considered libellous if I publish them here. I think the unredacted text provides sufficient information for blog readers to understand the protesters’ concerns.
Protesters outside the Hawk & Owl Trust’s Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve, Norfolk on July 24th 2023. (Photo: Friends of Sculthorpe Moor 2023).
THE HAWK AND OWL – NOT TO TRUST
For the last few years the Hawk and Owl Trust has been shadowed in controversy. The most recent events are the pinnacle of a catalogue of actions which we consider clearly prove that this charity is simply unable to do, as it claims – conserve wild birds of prey and their habitats.
This week loyal and frustrated lifetime members and volunteers of the Hawk and Owl Trust peacefully protested at the Trust’s flagship nature reserve, Sculthorpe Moor in Norfolk. Whilst many people have felt uneasy about the Trust for several years, let’s try and remove some of the ambiguity and secrecy, which the Trust has built up, and articulate the exact issues with the Trust and the reasons behind the latest protest.
There are two main issues levelled at the Hawk and Owl Trust. The first is in what we consider to be the unethical treatment, bullying and intimidation of staff and volunteers. The second is that we do not consider the Trust is doing what it should in terms of conservation. In short, it has just become all about the money. We consider it is not raising and spending funds xxxxx, xxxxx and appropriately.
To start with the first issue. In the last 5 years, 5 employees (of just a handful of staff) of the Hawk and Owl Trust have been involuntarily and xxxxx removed from the Trust’s employment, using Members funds as collateral. Similarly, over 100 volunteers have either been “stood down”, discarded or even banned from The Hawk and Owl Trust. With no evidence or clear rationale, despite questions being asked. Why has this happened?
As most small charities will appreciate, volunteers are the backbone of activities and in many cases, such as the Hawk and Owl Trust, without them things simply cannot survive. In this case both Hawk and Owl Trust’s reserves have suffered greatly with this exodus and the Urban Peregrine Project, including its local community outreach projects, has been completely disbanded and shut down.
So why are people such an important part in this sorry conservation situation? Well without the right people the Trust can simply not make the right decisions or deliver its conservation objectives and that is precisely what we consider is happening. A key example of this is the recent removal of the Sculthorpe Moor Chief Warden, who has been at the Moor for over 21 years. This leaves nobody at the Hawk and Owl Trust with the appropriate licenses or training to handle schedule 1 raptors, such as the Peregrine Falcon, the symbol of the Hawk and Owl Trust. How unworkable and crazy is that?
Similarly, there is nobody left with the appropriate scientific experience and knowledge to successfully manage the Moor. Grazing livestock has been needlessly slaughtered, at great cost, because the only warden with stockman knowledge was made redundant. Important scientific studies at this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), such as amphibian and dragonfly (after 20 consecutive years of crucial data collection) can no longer be conducted because those who carried out these important activities have been banned, upon receipt of an email from the Chief Operations Director (COD). This is particularly concerning when there is not a single person left at the Hawk and Owl Trust with the appropriate skills to fulfil the justifiably strict conditions of the Natural England Beaver reintroduction license which is currently happening at Sculthorpe.
Sculthorpe Moor Nature Reserve. (Photo: Friends of Sculthorpe Moor 2023)
Because of what we consider to be the appalling mismanagement of staff and volunteers, there is a breath-taking catalogue of conservation failures, on behalf of the Hawk and Owl Trust, over the last few years. These have been raised with the Board of Trustees and the Hawk and Owl Trust’s COD, Adrian Blumfield. Every member of the Board has been made aware of these issues at one point or another but they appear to have chosen to ignore the problems for reasons which seem unfathomable and questionable.
Here are just a few of the conservation issues that volunteers or staff have experienced and raised with the Hawk and Owl Trust:
Despite recent increases in many raptor species, the Hawk and Owl Trust cannot identify a single successful raptor nest box which they have established in the last 10 years. How is this conserving wild raptors?
Threatening to remove an active Schedule 1 nest box unless funds were diverted, from the ecclesiastical nesting site, to the Hawk and Owl Trust.
Repositioning an active, and perfectly good, Peregrine Falcon nest box to accommodate a webcam, resulting in the new nest not being used and unsuccessful breeding.
Supplementary feeding of Barn owls for well over the recommended timescales so they become dependent.
Not adhering to their SSSI responsibility by properly maintaining critical wildflower meadow habitat, which could be seen as an act of eco-vandalism.
Installing of inappropriate nest boxes and failing to maintain them, making them unfit for purpose and ultimately unsuccessful.
Inability to have a voice or opinion about Natural England’s decision to remove wild Peregrine chicks from active nest sites, despite being presented with an alternative solution of using wild rehabilitated juveniles.
Failure to follow clear DEFRA guidelines regarding, handling, reporting and testing raptors at the height of avian influenza, within a high-risk location.
Poorly managed and underpublicised the beaver reintroduction and now with the removal of the Moor’s Warden, it now has no license holder for the beavers.
The Hawk and Owl Trust has gone on record saying that they “Understand that a small number of people previously connected with the charity in various ways are resistant to the positive progress and management changes that have been made.” Firstly, as a concerned group, their numbers heavily outnumber the board of the Hawk and Owl Trust. There is well over 50 people protesting, including at least a dozen legators, who have cancelled bequests. Given that the average bequest in the UK last year was £40,000, it amounts to a lot of money being lost by the Hawk and Owl Trust.
The protesters are not “resistant to the positive progress and management changes that have been made” and have tried to engage with the Hawk and Owl Trust over that last 5 years. However, they have actually grown tired of waiting for change. Watching little, if any progress in the conservation of wild raptors over the last few years and members money being wasted on what we consider to be unrelated and unnecessary frivolities. For example, a huge animal shed that can no longer be used to its full potential because of the obvious lack of animals and animal handling skills left at the Trust.
The Trust went on further to say that “Any criticism of the charity is completely unwarranted, misplaced and risks undermining the work being undertaken.” However, everything above is documented and evidenced. The protesters now think that they were probably too tolerant and patient in the past and it is high time that the Chairman and Trustees fulfilled their responsibilities and let everyone know what work is being undertaken in support of their charitable objectives.
If things are allowed to continue as they are at the Hawk and Owl Trust, there is a significant and very real risk that Norfolk and the UK will lose a key SSSI and an extremely important habitat for the exact wildlife that the Trust claims it is trying, but quite clearly in our view, cannot and is failing, to protect.
ENDS
In the interest of fair reporting, blog readers are reminded of the statement issued by the Charity Commission and reported last week:
“We carefully considered concerns raised with us about the governance of The Hawk and Owl Trust. Based on the information provided, we determined that there is no regulatory role for us at this time.”
There was a pretty gruesome criminal case taking place at the High Court in Glasgow last week relating to the infamous Auch Estate at the Bridge of Orchy.
Long-term blog readers may well remember the Auch Estate – a deer-stalking and fishing sporting estate where a poisoned golden eagle was found in June 2009 along with a carbofuran-killed fox and a carbofuran-laced sheep carcass. The discovery led to a raid at the farm manager’s home where Carbofuran was discovered in a game bag and two illegal handguns were discovered in the loft.
Three years later after prolonged legal proceedings, farm manager Tom McKellar (then aged 50) was convicted for having possession of the banned pesticide Carbofuran, although he wasn’t charged with poisoning the golden eagle or placing the poisoned bait. He was given a pathetic £1,200 fine for possession of Carbofuran and a 300-hour community service order for possession of the two handguns, a crime which would normally have attracted a mandatory five year custodial sentence (see here and here for some background to that case).
Aerial view of Auch Estate. Photo: Crown Office
The case heard last week at Glasgow High Court centred on twin brothers Alexander and Robert McKellar (now aged 31). In September 2017 after drinking with a German hunting party at a local hotel, Alexander McKellar’s vehicle hit a charity cyclist, Tony Parsons, who was cycling on the A82, causing him serious injury. Instead of helping him, the two brothers drove back to Auch Estate (where they were reportedly self employed farm workers living with their parents – Alexander McKellar was also reported to be a deer stalker), dumped their phones and changed vehicle and went back to pick up Tony Parson’s body, bike and possessions, and drove back to the estate and initially hid Mr Parsons in a wood.
They later removed him from the wood and took him to another location on the estate, reported in court as a location used for “the purposes of disposing dead animals”, in other words, a stink pit. There they dug a grave and buried Mr Parsons and burned his possessions.
Mr Parson’s remains were not discovered until January 2021 after a girlfriend of one of the McKellar brothers told police she’d been shown the grave site in 2020. Prior to her report, in 2018 the police had been tipped off to “pay attention” to the McKellar twins and had visited the estate in January 2019 but were apparently ‘asked to leave’.
Details of the case can be read here, here and here.
The McKellar brothers were due to stand trial for the murder of Mr Parsons but the court has accepted a not guilty plea from Robert McKellar and a guilty plea from Alexander McKellar to a lesser charge of culpable homicide. Both have pleaded guilty to attempting to defeat the ends of justice. They will be sentenced on 25th August at Glasgow High Court.
Let’s hope there’s some justice for Tony Parsons and his family.
UPDATE 4th August 2023: More detail emerges about McKellar twins who buried cyclist’s body in stink pit on Auch Estate (here)
UPDATE 25th August 2023: McKellar twins from Auch Estate sentenced for killing cyclist & burying his body in a stink pit (here)
Many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to email north-west water company United Utilities (UU) in support of its decision not to renew grouse and pheasant/partridge shooting leases on its land after the current leases expire in 2027 (see here, here and here).
Multi-coloured moorland sphagnum bog mosses essential for holding water and helping to prevent downstream flooding & upstream wildfire. Photo: Ruth Tingay
In the face of a subsequent online attack from shooting organisations who are furious about this decision, UU has responded with a full statement to explain why the decision was made. This is the email that UU has been sending to those who are attacking the company:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us to raise your concerns about the United Utilities’ updated land strategy. Building on decades of successful habitat restoration, we recently reviewed the way we manage our land to ensure we are fully focused on using our catchments to manage water quality, quantity and mitigate flooding, which are of strategic importance to us as we respond to the challenges of climate change.
Addressing these challenges requires a step change in our approach to help ensure a fully resilient ecosystem in which wet moorlands and biodiverse woodlands can improve catchment resilience by slowing the flow of water and improving water quality and retention – this is the primary reason we own this catchment land.
Following that review and to ensure we can focus on those areas, we will not be renewing shooting leases where we own the rights. This follows a decision made some time ago not to issue any such leases on a long-term basis. Stepping away from leasing our shooting rights, as those leases come to their natural expiry date over the next few years, provides an opportunity to work with stakeholders to change the land management approach and support the delivery of this long-term objective for increased catchment resilience.
We remain committed to working with others, to accelerate the restoration and rewetting of our peatlands and the biodiversity of our woodlands. We believe this will help unlock other opportunities to deliver a richer and more diverse approach to habitat management, conserving and improving biodiversity, including protected species, while also developing skills and jobs. We see this as an extension of our catchment management work which has been so successful in other parts of our region.
Our updated land strategy affects 24 licences where we have shooting rights within specific catchments. We are working through this transition with those who are affected by this change as the leases come to their natural end and we remain committed to working with others to help address climate change risks such as wildfires and droughts whilst improving biodiversity. Many current land management techniques will continue and these will form part of new plans, developed and delivered with stakeholders and partners, providing new jobs and economic benefits for those who work in our catchment communities.
Further to the news that north-west water company United Utilities (UU) has decided not to renew any more grouse-shooting and pheasant/partridge-shooting leases on its land once the current leases expire in 2027 (here), the shooting organisations have gone into meltdown, first making veiled threats towards UU in the media (see here) and then whipping up the shooting community into a frenzy with familiar hyperbole that UU’s decision is an ‘insult‘, a ‘disaster‘, a ‘travesty‘, ‘tragic‘ and ‘appalling‘.
You won’t be surprised to learn that I disagree with all of those claims and welcome UU’s vision to restore their land for the benefit of wildlife and wider ecosystem health, and thus people.
I’d much rather see this:
A non-grouse-shooting moor in the Peak District National Park (photo: Ruth Tingay)
Than this:
A driven grouse moor on UU land in the Peak District National Park (Photo: Ruth Tingay)
It’s still not clear (to me, anyway) just how many shoots will be affected by UU’s decision. BASC says on its website, ‘It’s estimated that more than 30 shoots will be shut down as a result‘ whereas the Countryside Alliance says on its website that UU’s decision ‘…will close seven grouse moors and three low ground shoots‘.
Whatever the number, the shooting organisations are predicting rural Armageddon, as they often do when there’s the slightest whiff of any threat to shooting, and they’re now running a campaign to urge their members to write letters of complaint to UU’s chief executive Louise Beardmore, I guess in the hope of piling on the pressure and persuading UU to reverse its decision.
They’re entitled to express their opinions, of course, so it would be good if counter views to this attack were also heard by UU, to commend their decision and encourage them to hold firm. Who knows, the support may also encourage them to sort out their terrible sewage dumping record.
The owner of a Yorkshire Dales grouse moor has been appointed to a ‘key role’ at DEFRA by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Therese Coffey.
Heather Hancock, who according to her Wikipedia entry owns Threshfield Moor with her husband Mark Hancock, has been given the role of Lead Non-Executive Board Member, ‘appointed to provide challenge to Government departments’, according to this DEFRA press release (here).
Mark Avery has blogged about this appointment this morning (here) and he points out that Hancock’s co-ownership of a grouse moor has been conveniently excluded from the DEFRA press release.
It’s an interesting omission, as this particular grouse moor has been at the centre of two separate police investigations into suspected wildlife crime in recent years.
In October 2017, a young satellite-tagged hen harrier named ‘John’ ‘disappeared’ on Threshfield Moor in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and North Yorkshire Police issued an appeal for information (here).
Like so many other hen harriers that vanish in this hell-hole of a National Park, he’s never been seen again and of course, nobody was ever prosecuted.
In January 2020 Threshfield Moor was once again under investigation after two witnesses reported seeing the shooting of a hen harrier (here). That investigation did lead to an arrest of a gamekeeper but, as ever, there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against him and the investigation was dropped.
Threshfield Moor featured on this blog again just last month after a reader sent in photographs of two gas guns (bird scaring devices) that had been positioned on the grouse moor (see here) during the height of the breeding season.
I can’t imagine that Heather Hancock is going to ‘challenge’ the Government about anything in which she has a vested interest, can you?
Excerpt from Heather Hancock’s Wikipedia entry (27 July 2023)
A fascinating article appeared on the BBC News website yesterday about a ‘protest’ that’s been staged against the Hawk & Owl Trust over what has been described as “poor management of resources and of people“.
The BBC article (here) reveals that a protest was held at the Trust’s Sculthorpe Reserve in Norfolk by former staff and volunteers, who are angry about “money being wasted“, “volunteers being used badly” and the “method of management that threatens the reserve“.
The BBC reports that some life members of the Hawk & Owl Trust have been banned from the site. The protesters told the BBC they’d made a complaint to the Charity Commission to express concerns about ‘leadership and the use of funds’.
The Hawk & Owl Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, Adrian Blumfield, issued the following statement in response:
“The Hawk and Owl Trust is a respected national charity dedicated to conserving wild birds of prey and their habitats.
“It has two well-managed nature reserves in Norfolk and Somerset. The trust is a well-run and governed organisation with an experienced trustee body.
“We understand that a small number of people previously connected with the charity are resistant to the positive progress and changes that have been made.
“Any criticism of the charity is completely unwarranted, misplaced and risks undermining the work being undertaken.“
The Charity Commission said: “We carefully considered concerns raised with us about the governance of The Hawk and Owl Trust.
“Based on the information provided, we determined that there is no regulatory role for us at this time.”
Many of you will remember the Hawk & Owl Trust’s shocking decision in 2014-2015 to get in to bed with the grouse shooting industry in support of hen harrier brood meddling (here). It not only got into bed with them, it pulled up the duvet and stuck in some heavy duty ear plugs, refusing to be budged.
It cost the Trust dearly, as their President (Chris Packham) resigned, a load of members cancelled their subscriptions, and the charity’s credibility has never recovered in conservation circles. Much of the Trust’s decisions seemed to be led by the then Chair, Philip Merricks, but Trust statements at the time claimed that the decisions had the full backing of the Board of Trustees (at least two of whom were directly involved with the brood meddling trial, which seemed a bit questionable).
The Trust claimed to have several ‘immoveable conditions’ attached to its participation in brood meddling, not least that it would pull out ‘if any member of the moorland management organisations were found to have illegally interfered with or persecuted a hen harrier on their moors’ (here). We later learned that the ‘immoveable conditions’ were actually very moveable indeed (see here) and weren’t worth the paper they’d been printed on.
Needless to say, persecution continued and even when one of the hen harriers (called Rowan), satellite-tagged by Natural England in association with the Hawk & Owl Trust, was found dead with clear shotgun injuries to its leg, the Trust did all it could to avoid admitting the bleedin’ obvious (e.g. see here, here, here).
Even when the shotgun injuries were proven on Rowan, the Hawk & Owl Trust continued its charade (see here, here and here).
I’m afraid I lost all respect for the Hawk & Owl Trust during that time and still feel the same today. Despite having some really decent on-the-ground staff and doing some excellent public engagement work with city peregrines, for an organisation that is supposedly focused on the conservation of the UK’s birds of prey and owls it’s deeply disappointing that it has not been at the forefront of raising merry hell about the ongoing illegal killing of birds of prey in this country. In fact it’s more than deeply disappointing, it’s a bloody shocker.
UPDATE 2nd August 2023: More on the revolt at Hawk & Owl Trust: statement from protesters (here)
Press release from conservation campaign group Wild Justice (25th July 2023):
A SIGHT FOR SORE SSSIs: Protected areas in England are in a worse state than previously thought
A majority of English Sites of Special Scientific Interest haven’t been assessed by Natural England for over a decade, and are thought to be in a worse condition than currently reported.
An up-to-date analysis of Natural England’s data on SSSI condition shows that SSSI condition is worse than the latest Defra published figures. Sites assessed more recently have a lower percentage deemed to be in a good or improving condition, and a higher percentage deemed to be in a bad or worsening condition than those assessed longer ago.
Two-thirds of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in England haven’t been assessed in more than a decade. Over 80% of sites haven’t been assessed for five years or more.
A report by Wild Justice predicts that if the backlog of condition assessments were to be rapidly updated, English SSSIs would be shown to be in a worse state than current estimates admit.
Some of England’s most protected areas are likely to be in a worse state than currently reported, according to up-to-date analysis carried out by Wild Justice. The ‘Sight for Sore SSSIs’ report [linked at foot of blog] looked at when Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in England were last assessed, and revealed that the majority haven’t been evaluated in over a decade. Analysis of the most recently assessed sites suggests the overall condition of SSSIs is likely to be worse than Defra’s current figures show.
SSSIs are areas of land designated for their wildlife and biological value. Over 4,000 of the UKs 7,000 SSSIs are found in England. These places often contain rare habitats and species, and are therefore protected from development or certain activities or management. Their condition, or ‘status’ should be regularly assessed by Natural England to determine any changes in land management that might be needed to maintain or improve a site. Each SSSI is made up of between 1 and dozens of Units, each of which has been assessed as to its condition at some point since it was designated. A Unit’s condition can be classified in one of six ways; Favourable, Unfavourable – Recovering, Unfavourable – No Change, Unfavourable – Declining, Part Destroyed and Destroyed.
According to data acquired by Wild Justice, an organisation campaigning on wildlife issues in the UK, current estimates of English SSSI condition are likely to be inaccurate. This is because the time elapsed since the last assessment of any particular site, and the potential for that site to have changed during that time, isn’t taken into account when the figures for SSSI condition are provided by Defra. Wild Justice argues that if a protected meadow hasn’t been monitored for ten years, it’s quite possible that management or environmental factors could have affected the site’s condition during that decade.
The figures analysed by Wild Justice seem to support this idea. In site units last assessed over a decade ago, the proportion of ‘Favourable’, or ‘Unfavourable – Recovering’ sites are higher than site units assessed in the past few years. A similar effect can be seen with ‘Unfavourable – No Change’, and ‘Unfavourable – Declining’ sites; with higher percentages of these statuses in more recently assessed site units. This implies that as site assessments are brought up to date, the proportion of higher quality sites is revealed to be less, and the proportion of lower quality sites is revealed to be higher than it appears at first glance.
Mark Avery, Co-Director of Wild Justice said:
“It seems that most of our English SSSIs have been neglected when it comes to monitoring their condition. The fact that two-thirds of these special places haven’t been looked at in over 10 years by Natural England is troubling and disappointing. Especially as it looks like our most special areas are being damaged, and the public are none-the-wiser. The system has fallen into disrepair and we can have little faith in the published Defra figures on some of our most protected areas.”
Off the back of this analysis, Wild Justice are calling for Defra and Natural England to publish annual updates on the condition of English SSSIs, as well as their date of last assessment. Wild Justice believes a rapid catch-up needs to be prioritised in the next few years, setting a new standard of 80% of English SSSI Units having had their condition assessed in the last 5 years. Natural England should carry out an urgent review of the resources needed to ensure that English SSSIs are in Favourable condition.
ENDS
Wild Justice’s report can be read/downloaded here:
Further to the recent news (here) that water utility company United Utilities has decided not to renew any more grouse-shooting leases on its land in northern England, the Countryside Alliance has responded with predictable fury.
The Telegraph published an appallingly unbalanced pro-grouse shooting article last night (see here) with extensive quotes from Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance.
In this Telegraph puff piece for the grouse-shooting industry, Bonner is quoted as follows:
“United Utilities seem to be panicking about its recent appalling media coverage over their pollution of our waterways.
“The suggestion that it is banning shooting on its land has all the hallmarks of an ill thought-out distraction technique that will inevitably backfire.
“If it is true they intend not to renew the leases for shooting, it will have irreversible damaging consequences for the conservation and biodiversity of our precious uplands as well as the livelihoods of rural people.
“Additionally, it will create a new problem for United Utilities which should expect to find all its operations significantly more difficult, as a large part of the countryside will no longer want to cooperate with them in any way.
“It would be a stupid move for any landowner and utility provider to pick a fight with the countryside, let alone one which relies so heavily on access on to other people’s land.”
That half-veiled threat that “a large part of the countryside will no longer want to cooperate with them in any way” was put more forcibly in a tweet from the Countryside Alliance’s media account this morning, where the words “will no longer want to cooperate” were changed to, “will no longer cooperate“:
I’m not sure what he means by ‘cooperate‘ as water utility companies have statutory powers of entry on to private land, under the Water Industries Act 1991 – they don’t need a landowner’s ‘cooperation’ and United Utilities have an approved code of practice for such entry (see here) where a landowner’s rights are clearly laid out.
The Telegraph article does contain some useful information – it reports that the longest current grouse-shooting lease on UU-owned land is due to expire in 2027. At least now we have an idea when to expect grouse-shooting to end on UU-owned moorlands.
UPDATE 28th July 2023: Emails of support for United Utilities’ decision not to renew shooting leases (here)
UPDATE 30th July 2023: United Utilities stands firm & explains its decision not to renew shooting licences (here)
If you asked your average member of the public what they thought a duck pond was, I’d wager that most of them would talk about an idyllic small pond on a leafy village green, where a handful of wild ducks live and breed with relatively little stress, sometimes visited by local adult humans with small toddlers who want to see/feed the ducks as part of a peaceful outing.
I used to live in a village with such a pond and the biggest threat to the ducks was being run over on the main lane through the village, but every year the village residents would erect hand-made ‘duck crossing’ signs urging drivers to slow down. On the whole, it worked.
I doubt very much that the average member of the public would describe a duck pond as a massive vegetation-free mud pit, ridiculously over-stocked with semi-tame reared ducks that are fed with sack loads of barley to keep them at the pond so that paying clients can turn up in the shooting season in the autumn and blast them to smithereens for a bit of a laugh.
And yet that’s what’s happening on ‘sporting’ estates in the UK, with anecdotal reports of an increase in released ducks in recent years due to the shortage of pheasants and partridges available to be imported from abroad in the bird flu pandemic.
This grim image has been sent to me by a walker in Scotland. She told me it was one of two such ‘ponds’ on this shooting estate in the Scottish Borders, which also offers partridge and pheasant shooting. These ducks have been released here in the last few weeks, in readiness for the start of the shooting season on 1st September.
It would be fair to say that not every duck-shooting pond looks as bad as this – I’ve seen others that are not so blatantly over-stocked and have been created to provide a really good wildlife-enriched habitat, although there are still issues about the ethics of duck shooting in this way – there are plenty of reports on the internet of ducks circling round and round, trying to land on a pond whilst trying to dodge the guns. Each time they come around they fly higher and higher, resulting in many of them being ‘winged’ and maimed because they’re just out of range for the guns. It’s an appalling carnage.
Here are the same semi-tame ducks seen in the above photograph, in anticipation of being fed.
Although many sporting estates offer ‘mixed bag’ days that comprise pheasant, partridge and duck (typically mallard), it’s both alarming and ironic that the reported increases in duck shooting has been caused by the lack of pheasants/partridge poults due to the prevalence of highly pathogenic avian flu.
You might recall that the RSPB recently repeated its call for a moratorium on the release of gamebirds, and ducks, due to the risk of them spreading highly pathogenic avian flu to wild bird populations (see here). DEFRA ignored the call. Ducks and other water birds are especially susceptible to avian flu and I can’t imagine that over-stocking like that shown in these two photographs is going to minimise the risk.
The shooting of semi-tame ducks for ‘fun’ hasn’t attracted as much attention as pheasant and partridge shooting, probably due to the numbers (and thus environmental impact) involved (i.e. an estimated 60+ million non-native pheasants & partridges released annually in the UK compared with a vaguely estimated 3 million native mallards) but it definitely deserves more scrutiny, especially in this avian-flu era.
UPDATE 2nd September 2023: Minister admits DEFRA is clueless about over-stocked duck ponds for shooting (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 