Raptor Persecution UK

Parliamentary Question: is public money being used to promote wildlife criminals in Scottish shooting sector?

Last week it was announced that the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group (SCSTG) has plans to boost the value of game shooting, stalking and fishing to the rural economy by £30 million, via its new ‘Game for Growth’ strategy.

The Game for Growth strategy document can be read here: sctsg-game-for-growth-strategy-document-dec-2016

It’s a pretty turgid read, full of tedious marketing soundbites, but basically it sets out how the industry plans to promote Scottish country sports over the next four years to reach a wider national and international market. This will be achieved mostly, it seems, by claiming the industry is sustainable with fabulous conservation benefits and ignoring the vast environmental damage and wildlife crime associated with some activities within this sector.

visit-scotland-1 Interestingly, VisitScotland (the national tourism agency linked to the Scottish Government) has apparently committed to boosting the country sports tourism sector and has announced a matched ‘Growth Fund’ to help SCSTG develop its marketing strategy and increase its online presence.

We’re not the only ones to raise an eyebrow at this. Andy Wightman MSP has lodged the following Parliamentary Question about it:

Question S5W-05930: Andy Wightman (Lothian, Scottish Green Party). Date lodged: 22/12/2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the recipients of financial contributions from VisitScotland to the strategy, Game for Growth Strategy – Country Sports Tourism in Scotland 2016; what information it has regarding how each recipient will use this; what action it has taken to ensure that no money was provided to the owners or managers of landholdings on which crimes against wildlife have been committed; whether it will publish the strategy on its website, and what aspects of this it is supporting or plans to support with public money.

Expected answer date: 19/01/2017

These are legitimate questions, and especially when you take a closer look at the SCSTG website, which has been developed to connect potential visitors with various country sports providers across Scotland. For example, if you want to pay money to shoot mountain hares in Scotland, you can use the website’s search facility and a number of sporting agents/estates who offer this ‘sport’ will be highlighted.

We used the search facility to look for various ‘sporting’ opportunities and were very surprised to find that sporting agency Dunmhor Sporting was being promoted:

Why the surprise? Well, Graham Christie of Dunmhor Sporting was convicted in December last year of being vicariously liable for the criminal actions of his gamekeeper, who had used an illegal gin trap to catch and injure a buzzard on the Cardross Estate.

Why is the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group promoting an agent who has a current conviction for wildlife crime? And why is VisitScotland providing match funding to an organisation that is promoting a convicted wildlife criminal?

Gamekeepers want sea eagles, kites, buzzards, sparrowhawks & ravens added to General Licences

Further to this morning’s blog about RSPB Scotland’s damning response to SNH’s General Licence consultation (see here), we said we’d write a separate blog about some of the other responses that SNH received.

SNH has now published all the responses, and they’re well worth a read: all-responses-to-snh-general-licence-consultation-2016

There are many organisations and individuals calling for ravens to be added to the General Licences (no surprise) and, yet again, there are a number of requests for buzzards and sparrowhawks to also be added, which would allow these species to be casually killed across Scotland without any monitoring or regulation, although some have suggested these raptors should be on ‘regional’ General Licences to limit the casual killing to a particular area. How thoughtful.

One of the reasons given for adding ravens and buzzards to the General Licences was this: “There are arguably too many of them around and they cloud the skies in our local area“.

Here’s a photograph of some ravens and buzzards clouding the skies:

Actually, this is a photograph (by Richard Barnes) of Dunlin flocking on the coast of North America but it could just as easily be a plague of swarming raptors over a Scottish grouse moor, if you happen to be a pathological raptor hater stuck with an 18th century attitude, that is.

Take a look at the consultation response from Garry MacLennan. Surely not the same Garry MacLennan, Head Gamekeeper at Invermark Estate? Aren’t raptors supposed to be ‘thriving’ there? Perhaps the headline should have read ‘Raptors are thriving on Scottish grouse moors and we want licences to kill them’.

Also have a look at the responses from Iain Hepburn (the same Iain Hepburn as the head gamekeeper at Dunmaglass Estate?), Duncan Mackenzie and Calum Kippen (the same Corrybrough Estate gamekeepers who attended the recent meeting between the Cairngorms National Park Authority & the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association?). Aren’t these the gamekeepers who want licences to monitor and ring raptors? Don’t they see a bit of a conflict of interest there if they also want licences to kill these raptors?

Best of all though, is the response from Bert Burnett (presumably of the SGA). Bert suggests that ravens should be added to the General Licences and argues that regional general licences “could be rolled out for various species that may start to cause problems like sea eagles and kites etc“. Ah yes, that very serious problem of sea eagles mistaking small children for prey.

Of course, these calls for licences to cull raptors are nothing new. Scottish (and English) gamekeepers and land owners have been asking for these for 20 years (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here). So far, SNH has resisted but given Natural England’s recent capitulation on buzzard-killing licences, how much longer before we see the same in Scotland?

RSPB Scotland slams General Licence system as ‘cover for criminal destruction of raptors’

Earlier this year, SNH opened a consultation on the use of General Licences (GLs), in anticipation of updating the terms of use for their suite of 2017 GLs.

This wasn’t anything new. SNH regularly reviews the GLs, but, as has happened so many times before, this year SNH has yet again ignored the on-going conservation concerns about the use of these GLs.

We’ve blogged about the terms of the GLs many times, particularly in relation to the mis-use of traps that are authorised under the terms of the GLs (e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) and RSPB Scotland has been questioning the terms of GLs for over ten years (e.g. see here [pages 6-13] and here).

RSPB Scotland responded to this year’s GL consultation, repeating the same concerns as they had ten years ago. You can read their consultation response here: rspb_scotland_response_to-snh_2016_gl_consultation

(As an aside, SNH has now published all the responses to this year’s GL consultation but we’ll be blogging about that in another post).

A couple of weeks ago, SNH announced the changes it was making to the 2017 GLs and, surprise surprise, many of the concerns raised by RSPB Scotland and other conservation organisations have been totally ignored, again. You can read SNH’s announcement here: snh-ogl-consultation-response-letter-annexes-a-b-and-c

baited-clam1 Amongst other things, SNH has decided to reinstate the use of meat bait inside clam traps (thus increasing the likelihood of catching birds of prey), and there is also a commitment to ‘explore new and responsive licensing solutions to prevent agricultural damage by ravens’. On-going concerns that have not been addressed include (but are not limited to) compliance (or not) with European environmental legislation; welfare concerns; poor trap design that allows indiscriminate species trapping; year-round use (as opposed to seasonal use); ineffective regulation of trap users; ineffective monitoring of trap use (i.e. number and species caught/killed); inability to identify an individual trap user; and the lovely get-out clause for any General Licence user with an unspent criminal conviction.

Justifiably, RSPB Scotland are pretty unimpressed, as well they should be, and they have issued a scathing press release about SNH’s failure to address long-term concerns, particularly in relation to the use of GLs as a cover for the illegal persecution of raptors. RSPB Scotland’s press release can be read here.

RSPB Scotland has also produced a video to highlight some of their concerns. Watch it here.

If you share RSPB Scotland’s concerns, and you agree that the current GL system is not fit for purpose, you can make your views known to SNH by emailing them at: licensing@snh.gov.uk

Deja vu

Yesterday we published a map. It showed part of the East Arkengarthdale Estate in North Yorkshire where an illegal cache of poisons had been discovered in 2014. Here’s the map again:

shaw-farm-map

Did anyone else get a sense of deja vu when looking at that map? Have a look at that forest block at the top of the map. That’s Stang Forest and it’s got quite a distinctive shape.

Now have a look at this map, which we published a year ago in December 2015:

stang-forest-copy

Why did we publish this map last year? Well, it was to illustrate an area where a peregrine had been found shot dead on 23 August 2015 ‘on the south east edge of Stang Forest’.

An interesting area, eh?

Stang Forest shot perg - Copy

Subsidy penalty for East Arkengarthdale Estate?

Ten days ago we blogged about the RSPB’s Investigations Team finding a buried poisons cache on the East Arkengarthdale Estate in North Yorkshire in 2014 (see here).

east-arkengarthdale

Incredibly, nobody was prosecuted for this illegal stash and, despite the best efforts of North Yorkshire Police, the gamekeeper who had admitted using the poisons cache had his firearms certificates returned.

We asked several organisations within the grouse shooting industry a number of questions about this case (see here) but so far, none of them have said a word about it (in public, at least). We’ll come back to this.

What we’re interested in now is whether the East Arkengarthdale Estate will be the focus of an investigation by DEFRA’s Rural Payments Agency. Did this estate receive any agricultural subsidies in 2014, if so under what scheme(s), and does having confirmation that an estate gamekeeper was using the poisons cache constitute a cross-compliance breach of any of these subsidy schemes, and if so, will the estate receive a subsidy penalty?

According to records at Companies House, East Arkengarthdale Ltd has two Directors: Eric Axel Lennart Torstenson and Mrs Anita Ingrid Linnea Torstenson.

A search of the CAP Payments website shows that EAL Torstenson received the following subsidies in 2014 and 2015:

torstenson-2014-cap-payments

torstenson-2015-cap-payments

These documents show that EAL Torstenson received agricultural subsidies (trading as) Shaw Farm.

According to this 2003 newsletter about a Black Grouse Recovery Project, “Shaw Farm in North Yorkshire is part of the East Arkengarthdale Sporting Estate“.

Here’s a map of Shaw Farm, to the west of Hurst Moor where the poisons cache was found:

shaw-farm-map

We’d like to draw the Rural Payments Agency’s attention to this case (because they have a duty to investigate anything that is drawn to their attention so by telling them about it they can’t later claim they didn’t know anything about it) and we’d like them to answer the following questions:

Did the CAP subsidies received by Shaw Farm in 2014 cover the land where the poisons cache was discovered?
If so, does having a poisons cache, administered by a gamekeeper, qualify as a cross-compliance breach?
If so, will the Rural Payments Agency be applying a subsidy penalty?

Emails to: ruralpayments@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Satellite-tagged hen harrier ‘Beater’ is lost, presumed dead

Another of the 2016 cohort of satellite-tagged hen harriers has been reported as ‘lost’, presumed dead.

This time it’s a bird called ‘Beater’, a young male who hatched on the admirable Glen Feshie Estate in the Cairngorms National Park. According to the most recent blog update from Blanaid Denman (Project Manager, RSPB Hen Harrier Life Project):

“Sadly, no data has been received from Beater since his tag last transmitted on 14^th November. His last known location was on an area upland pasture in the central Scottish Borders. We have no information to suggest anything illegal has happened, the transmissions did not stop abruptly as in other recent cases, but we do now think it most likely that he has died” (read the full Skydancer blog here).

Photo of Beater shortly before fledging (photo by Ewan Weston)

The class of 2016 are not doing very well. In addition to Beater, here are some of the others that haven’t survived past November:

Hen harrier Elwood – ‘disappeared’ in the Monadhliaths just a few weeks after fledging.

Hen harrier Brian – ‘disappeared’ in the Cairngorms National Park just a few weeks after fledging.

Hen harrier Donald – missing in northern France, presumed dead.

Hen harrier Hermione – found dead on Mull, believed to have died from natural causes.

Hen harrier Rowan – found dead in Yorkshire Dales National Park. Cumbria Police said ‘likely to have been shot’. There is no ambiguity – this bird was shot (more on this soon).

Hen harrier Tarras – ‘disappeared’ in the Peak District National Park.

Also ‘lost’ this year were two birds from the 2014 cohort: Hen harrier Highlander ‘disappeared’ in Co Durham in April and Hen harrier Chance ‘disappeared’ in South Lanarkshire in May.

At least eight of the 2016 cohort are still alive (Aalin, Bonny, Carroll, DeeCee, Finn, Harriet, Wendy and Sorrel). Thanks to regular updates from Blanaid and her colleagues (thank you – much appreciated), these birds’ movements can be followed on the project website (here) with the exception of Sorrel, whose movements are being monitored on the Hawk & Owl Trust website (here). How many will make it to Xmas?

The gamekeeping myth of thriving raptors

courier2

There was a good letter published in The Courier a couple of days ago, in response to the Gift of Grouse propaganda that raptors are ‘thriving’ on grouse moors.

Sir, – A recent article by a game-keeping lobbyist painted a picture that all was well on our uplands and that birds of prey were thriving, especially on the Angus hills.

As a way of confirming this, keepers have been counting the number of flying raptors as a measure of this success.

Surely successful breeding birds of prey would be a better benchmark of their status?

I once had an osprey fly over my house but it does not nest in my garden.

Indeed, if it flies over some of the intensely keepered estates, especially on the eastern side of the Angus hills, they will have to keep flying.

Come April and May, the uplands here are host to numerous scarecrows, explosive gas guns, bird-scaring bangers and inflating figures attached to sirens.

Why?

Well, if you were a ground-nesting bird of prey like a hen harrier, all this racket would put you off breeding on the Angus hills; and they haven’t for 10 years.

Ironically, with the cacophony of noise ringing out night and day, you will see precious little else as curlew and golden plover, like the raptors, are forced to move on.

Recent truly scientific papers show that golden eagles, hen harriers and other raptors in the north-east Highlands are largely absent from these managed estates.

Indeed, hen harriers have suffered a catastrophic decline.

So concerned is the Scottish Government that Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for the environment, climate change and land reform, has commissioned a review regarding this.

The RSPB has derided this latest press release attempt at fooling the public as propaganda and make-believe.

The gamekeeping fraternity’s scientific report flies in the face of peer-reviewed scientific reports from Scottish National Heritage, the RSPB and others.

Perhaps not surprisingly, their scientific report is not in the public domain and so their outlandish claims cannot be verified.

David Mitchell.
6 Henry Street,
Kirriemuir.

END

Well done, David. Great to see blog readers spreading the word.

As a quick update, a summary scientific report of the bird surveys done at Invermark Estate in the Angus Glens has now been published. As expected, the report reveals that the grouse-shooting industry’s claims about ‘thriving’ raptors were not supported by the evidence, and the Gift of Grouse campaign had misled everyone (see here).

Scottish Justice Committee examines performance of Crown prosecutors in wildlife crime cases

The Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee is in the middle of an inquiry into the role and purpose of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

This is a broad inquiry focusing on the core role of the COPFS and examining its effectiveness and efficiency, how well it works with stakeholders and the support it provides to witnesses and victims of crime.

As part of the inquiry, interested organisations were invited to submit written evidence. A full list of these submissions can be found here and we were pleased to see submissions from Scottish Badgers, RSPB Scotland and Scottish Environment LINK, all discussing their concerns about how wildlife crimes are handled. These three submissions can be read here:

written-submission-from-scottish-badgers

written-submission-from-rspb-scotland

written-submission-from-scottish-environment-link

All are well worth a read. The evidence from Scottish Badgers is particularly shocking. Here’s an example:

‘Our recent analyses of evidence averages 60 reports of badger incidents per quarter – of which 40 are confirmed badger crimes. This is in stark contrast to the 7 badger crimes recorded in police statistics in the year 2013/14, none of which were brought to prosecution‘.

Once again this calls in to question the veracity of the Scottish Government’s annual Wildlife Crime Report, which we’ve already criticised for its exclusion of a number of confirmed raptor persecution crimes (see here). The disparity between the annual crime figures recorded by Scottish Badgers and those recorded by Police Scotland is enormous, and again undermines any confidence that is to be had from the Government’s annual Wildlife Crime Report.

Natural Injustice 1 Feb 2015 cover - Copy All three submissions to the Justice Committee share a common theme – there is repeated criticism of the chronic lack of communication and engagement from the Crown Office with organisations that have played key roles in wildlife crime investigations. This topic was further discussed during an oral evidence session to the Justice Committee on 29 November 2016. Ian Thomson (Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland) was invited to speak to the Committee on behalf of Scottish Environment LINK. The video of this evidence session can be viewed here (starts at 11.15 mins) and the transcript of the evidence session can be read here (starts at page 6).

During this oral session, Ian talked at length about the Crown Office’s refusal to communicate, and the subsequent frustration and missed opportunities to learn that this silence engenders. Some members of the Justice Committee seemed pretty shocked by this, and the irony wasn’t lost on them when they were told the (former) Lord Advocate had steadfastly refused to meet with LINK members to discuss a 2015 report (‘Natural Injustice‘) that had flagged up the same communication failures.

Complaints about a lack of communication from the COPFS isn’t just limited to those groups involved with the investigation of wildlife crime. A number of other submissions from completely different sectors, including those involved with rape victims, restorative justice, victim support, and even the covener of a car rally, had also all raised the same point.

Let’s hope that the Justice Committee’s inquiry results in some recommendations to improve this on-going problem, and let’s also hope that the recommendation, if it comes, is not ignored like it was when it was previously made (in relation to the investigation of wildlife crime) in 2008 (see here).

Minutes of meeting between Cairngorms National Park Authority & Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association

ALMD Last month we blogged about a comment that had been made during an official meeting between the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) and the SGA. The comment came from a CNPA Board member (Eleanor Mackintosh) who was advising the gamekeepers to ‘cover up’ dead mountain hares so that photographs of the corpses couldn’t be published on social media (see here).

That meeting between the CNPA and the SGA was triggered by the SGA’s anger over a blog that had been written by Will Boyd Wallis (CNPA’s Head of Land Management & Conservation) in August, where Mr Boyd Wallis had raised legitimate concerns about some aspects of intensive grouse moor management (see here).

The SGA was furious about that CNPA blog, for a number of reasons (see below). The SGA asked for a meeting with the CNPA to discuss these concerns and the meeting was arranged, apparently after the ‘intervention‘ of Fergus Ewing MSP, who is Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy & Connectivity, but whose remit does not cover the National Parks (Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham has responsibility for the National Parks).

Chairman of the SGA, Alex Hogg, wrote to the CNPA requesting a meeting. We got a copy of his letter via an FoI request and here it is: sga-letter-requesting-mtg-with-cnpa-sept-2016

It’s an entertaining read. In it, Alex claims there’s no need for concern about the potential environmental harm of dumping tonnes of medicated grit on to the grouse moors because there’s no scientific evidence to show any damage. He also suggests that if the CNPA was concerned about potential environmental damage then the CNPA would be looking at the issue of dogs and livestock (which have also been wormed) defecating all over the Park. Hmm. If dogs and livestock had been wormed every day with a drug that was 10-20 x the strength permitted for use in the UK, and those piles of faeces were placed at every 100 metres across the grouse moor, for up to eight months of the year, as are piles of medicated grit put out for red grouse, then he might have had a valid point. Unfortunately for Alex, there is growing scientific evidence that the drug used in medicated grit (Flubendazole) is actually highly toxic to some aquatic organisms (e.g. see here) and, given the extent of its use on intensively managed grouse moors, this is exactly why Leeds University is offering a PhD scholarship to examine this issue in more detail (see here).

Anyway, on to the actual meeting itself. This took place on 29 September 2016 at Glenlochy in the National Park (an interesting choice of venue given the raptor persecution crimes that have been recorded in the area). In attendance were several representatives of the CNPA, several from the SGA, including Bert Burnett, some gamekeepers, and local SNP councillor Geva Blackett, who used to work as the SGA’s Parliamentary Officer many moons ago and who is married to Simon Blackett, the (now retired) Estate Factor at Invercauld Estate.

The minutes can be downloaded here: minutes-cnpa-sga-mtg-29-sept-2016

These minutes are well worth a read, not just because they expose the buffoonery of the SGA, but also because they provide an insight to the astonishing display of deference from the CNPA officials towards the SGA.

The meeting covered many topics and we won’t go in to all of them here because you can read them for yourselves and have a good giggle (whatever you do, don’t diss red grouse by calling them willow grouse!). The main thing we want to focus on is the discussion about gamekeepers getting licences to monitor and ring raptors and waders within the National Park.

Geva Blackett is pushing the CNPA to support this idea, and according to Bert Burnett, “no training is needed”. He really doesn’t have a clue, does he?! The CNPA seems equally as ignorant, claiming that they’d like to support this initiative because they’d like to know about raptor numbers within the Park. Er, have they not heard of the award-winning Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme? A multi-partner scheme that holds all the raptor monitoring data collected across Scotland? Apparently not.

What’s even funnier about the SGA’s demands to get licences is that just this week, Bert Burnett and a couple of his cronies (including a convicted falcon thief) have launched a social media campaign designed to portray raptor fieldworkers in a negative light. They’ve trawled the internet and come up with some old photographs of raptor tagging activities (one photo is at least 13 years old!) and have made wholly unsubstantiated allegations about the behaviour of those featured in the photographs (unbeknownst to Bert, one of the photographs is actually from a project in North America, not from Scotland!). Apparently, these nest visits cause birds to desert. Hmm. And the evidence for that is where, exactly?

Bert has also claimed that raptor monitoring, ringing and tagging is “completely unregulated and those doing it are totally non accountable for their actions”. This exposes Bert’s lack of knowledge about the training and qualifications needed for this work, and also his ignorance about the high level of reporting required by the licensing authorities.

Strange, isn’t it, that if Bert thinks all this monitoring and ringing is ‘bad’, that at this meeting with the CNPA he is pushing for gamekeepers to be issued with licences to do the same work!

And if Bert/the SGA and co are so upset about satellite-tagging, why are they not kicking off about the GWCT’s woodcock satellite-tagging project?

And if Bert/the SGA and co are so upset about the ‘welfare’ of satellite-tagged golden eagles, why do we never see them kicking off about eagles that have been found poisoned, shot or trapped on driven grouse moors?

What is obviously going on here is a desperate little smear campaign designed to coincide with the forthcoming review of raptor satellite tag data, as requested by Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham (see here). This review, due out in the spring, is expected to be damning. We already know that many satellite-tagged raptors ‘disappear’ on grouse moors, and we also know that many satellite-tagged raptors have turned up either poisoned, shot or trapped on grouse moors. This review will pull all of those data together and it is predicted to be a shocking read.

The SGA knows this, hence these latest tactics to try and discredit the raptor workers.

Now, what was it that Tim (Kim) Baynes of the Scottish Moorland Group told that parliamentary committee last week? Ah yes, it was this:

“We would very much like to see greater cooperation between ourselves, the Raptor Study Groups and the RSPB“.

It’s pretty clear the SGA has not received this message, or if it has, it’s chosen to ignore it.

But you carry on, Bert, because what you’re doing is political suicide. By asking your cronies to send (no doubt illiterate, baseless rants) to Roseanna Cunningham, complaining about Scottish Raptor Study Group members, she will see that the SGA is trying to undermine her review of the satellite tag data, and she’ll also recognise that the SGA’s claims of ‘partnership working’ with other members of the PAW Raptor Group are nothing more than lip service. PAW partners? Piss-poor partners, more like.

Photograph: dead golden eagle ‘Alma’, found poisoned on a grouse moor on Millden Estate in the Angus Glens. Her corpse was only found because she was wearing a satellite tag, fitted by Scottish Raptor Study Group member and internationally-recognised expert Roy Dennis. It’s no surprise then, that the SGA wants to put a stop to satellite-tagging.

East Arkengarthdale Estate: some questions for the grouse shooting industry

Following on from today’s earlier news that in December 2014 a poisons cache had been uncovered on a driven grouse moor at East Arkengarthdale Estate in Yorkshire, and that a gamekeeper had admitted that he was responsible for placing poisons in the cache, but he avoided prosecution and had his firearms certificates reinstated (see here), we’ve got some questions for the grouse-shooting industry.

arken

Let’s start with questions for the Moorland Association. Email: amanda@moorlandassociation.org

Is East Arkengarthdale Estate a member of the Moorland Association?
When were you first aware of the discovery of this poisons cache, that was found two years ago?
Were you aware of it when you gave evidence at Westminster on the petition to ban driven grouse shooting?
If East Arkengarthdale Estate is a member, will you be expelling them from your organisation?
If not, why not?
Will you be publishing a statement about the discovery of a poisons cache on a driven grouse moor in Yorkshire?
If not, why not?
Will you be praising the superb work of the RSPB Investigations Team for uncovering this poisons cache on a driven grouse moor?
Can you confirm whether Adrian Thornton-Berry, a Moorland Association official, was the sporting agent (via Dalesport Sporting Agency) at East Arkengarthdale Estate in December 2014 when the poisons cache was discovered?
Did Amanda see the poisons cache through her kitchen window?

Questions for the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation. Email: info@nationalgamekeepers.org.uk

Is this (unnamed) gamekeeper a member of the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation?
If yes, do you intend to expel him from your organisation?
If not, why not?
Could you explain why this gamekeeper had an electronic calling device (typically used to attract predators) with a series of raptor calls stored in it?
Could you explain why this gamekeeper was visiting a poisons cache on a driven grouse moor?
Could you explain why those poisons had been hidden in a bucket, underground?

Questions for the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust. Email: info@gwct.org.uk

When did you first become aware of the discovery of a poisons cache at East Arkengarthdale Estate?
Were you aware of it when one of your 2014 auction prizes (some driven grouse shooting on 4 Yorkshire grouse moors, including East Arkengarthdale Estate) was fulfilled in October 2015?
Have you received funding/donations from East Arkengarthdale Estate?
Will you be accepting any further funding/donations from East Arkengarthdale Estate in light of today’s news?

Questions for BASC. Email: click here

Why did your senior staff member, Dr Colin Shedden, tell a Scottish parliamentary committee that “any hint of illegal activity can lead to the right to hold a [shotgun] certificate, and the ability to shoot, being withdrawn“, when on the very same day, the BASC Chairman was defending the right of a gamekeeper to keep his shotgun certificate despite him admitting to placing poisons in a secret cache?

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