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Environment Minister hails Scotland’s wildlife killers

The world’s gone bonkers.

A few days ago we had Scottish Natural Heritage, the Government’s statutory nature conservation body, promoting Scotland’s dead wildlife pantry and the grouse shooting industry, claiming that red grouse are ‘healthy’, natural’ and harvested ‘sustainably’ when actually they’re anything but (see here).

And now we have Scotland’s Environment Minister, Dr Aileen McLeod, praising “the significant and valuable contribution” of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association as she presented the SGA’s Young Gamekeeper of the Year Award 2015 at the Scottish Game Fair yesterday. Here’s what she had to say:

“I just want to say, obviously, thank you very much, Alex [Hogg], and I’m absolutely delighted to be invited here this afternoon, this is obviously my first time I’ve ever been to the game fair as well so I’m really delighted to be here, the opportunity to be next to Alex and this young man as well [Duncan Seaton, the recipient of the award], so also I just thought it’d be a good opportunity just to thank the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association for all the long term support which you have provided to Scottish Government in various areas of policy, development and implementation and making sure we are implementing best practices of conservation and wildlife and wildlife management and I think to be really honest without your guys significant and valuable contribution to the management of Scotland’s countryside, we really wouldn’t have the world famous landscapes which many people from home and abroad enjoy which makes such a valuable contribution to Scotland’s rural economy“.

You can watch the video here.

No mention, then, of the hundreds of thousands of native animals that are snared, trapped and shot on an industrial scale every year by gamekeepers to ensure that an artificially high surplus of game birds (some non-native) is available to be, er, shot? And that’s just the legal killing. No mention either of the illegal poisoning, trapping, shooting and beating to death of protected wildlife, particularly birds of prey, which we know takes place on a significant scale because it affects the population range of a number of species; that doesn’t happen on that scale if it’s ‘just a few rogues at it’.

We’ve been waiting for Dr McLeod to show her hand since she first took office last November. It looks like she just has.

McLeod SGA Game Fair 2015

Red kite shot dead in Co Down

Red kite fawkes shot NI MAY 2015A female red kite, born in Wales and released in Northern Ireland as part of the reintroduction project there, has been found shot dead.

The bird, named ‘Fawkes’, hatched in Wales in 2010 and was donated to the Northern Ireland Red Kite Reintroduction Project – she had been adopted by the Ballyclare High School in 2011 and staff and pupils from the school had been following the bird’s progress over the last few years.

Her corpse was discovered on 20th May 2015 near Katesbridge. She was discovered in a breeding territory belonging to two known breeders, both of whom have ‘disappeared’ in recent weeks.

News article on UTV here

The loss of this bird is a big blow to the reintroduction project. With an estimated 14 breeding pairs of red kites in Northern Ireland, and no plans for further release of additional birds to boost the numbers, this tiny population looks set for certain demise.

Henry’s tour day 57: Kildrummy

 

Thurs 2 July 2015 CopyHenry called in at Kildrummy – the location of some pretty obscene ‘raptor management techniques’ recently- see here.

Rumour has it there’s a new keeper at Kildrummy Estate, following the incarceration of Scottish gamekeeper (and SGA member) George Mutch, (formerly of Kildrummy Estate), for his disgusting crimes.

The new keeper’s name? Local rumour suggests something quite incredible, but that can’t surely be true.

Here’s an anagram: Hmm crust

Shot peregrine found in County Durham has to be euthanised

shot perg june 2015 durham_peregrinefalconjohnolleyThe Police and the RSPB are appealing for information following the discovery of a shot peregrine last month.

The bird was found, still alive, on 4th June at Castle Lake, Bishop Middleham, a local nature reserve managed by Durham Bird Club.

After a veterinary examination the male’s injuries were considered so severe it was decided to put him to sleep.

The RSPB is offering a £1,000 reward for information that leads to a successful conviction.

RSPB press release here

Photo of shot peregrine by John Olley

Henry’s tour day 56: back on Donside

Weds 1 July 2015 Copy

Henry is back on the eastern side of the Cairngorms National Park.

Here he is at Glen Nochty. Probably safer not to go down this road – bad things happen here where the forest borders a grouse moor (which can be seen in the distance).

Henry’s tour day 55: burn, baby, burn!

Tues 30 June 2015 Copy

Henry is growing increasingly interested in the management techniques used on intensively-managed driven grouse moors.

He was bemused to see this sign on the Nawton Tower Estate in the North York Moors National Park. ‘No fires’ on this designated Site of Special Scientific Interest….but what’s all that black, charred moor in the background?!

Mark Avery has today published a timely blog about the environmental effects of moorland burning – see here.

The Nawton Tower Estate is also known as the Bransdale Moor Estate, according to this parliamentary discussion. And actually, this discussion is rather interesting for another reason as it reveals details of tax breaks for grouse moor owners in return for public access rights, but after taking the tax breaks some landowners decided they wanted to restrict public access – it’s fascinating! The context of the above parliamentary discussion can be found in this Hansard report.

The grouse management on Bransdale Moor has been linked to Mark Osborne – see here, and apparently this grouse moor is ‘often described as the premier North Yorkshire Moors grouse shooting estate’ – see here.

Henry didn’t see any hen harriers during his visit but did see a lot of pheasants(?!) and a lot of red grouse.

Henry’s tour day 54: drug habit

Mon 29 June 2015 Copy

Henry has learned that visiting an intensively managed driven grouse moor is the perfect place to score some drugs.

If you’re not a druggie and aren’t sure what these white crystals are, read here and here.

Scotland’s unnatural larder: SNH has lost the plot

Aim Click Collect June 2015If you’d been at the Royal Highland Show last week you might have seen this SNH poster. You might also have seen Environment Minister Dr Aileen McLeod posing in front of it.

What is it?

It’s part of an SNH campaign called Scotland’s Natural Larder, being run jointly with BASC Scotland, and coincides with the Scottish Government’s Year of Food & Drink.

According to an article in SNH’s latest magazine (The Nature of Scotland, Spring/Summer 2015, page 10):

“The aim of Scotland’s Natural Larder project is to encourage people to eat natural produce that has been sustainably harvested or hunted” and “A key focus is helping people understand the close links between the health of the environment and sustainable management“.

According to SNH, ‘Game meat is healthy, natural and delicious’ (see here).

According to BASC, ‘Game meat is healthy, sustainable and delicious’ (see here).

So the key words being bandied about by the Government’s statutory nature conservation agency (as well as by BASC, which is less surprising) about shot red grouse (look at the poster) is that they are ‘healthy’, ‘natural’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘delicious’.

Forget about the word ‘delicious’ because whether grouse tastes delicious or not is entirely subjective and pretty irrelevant. But what about those other words? ‘Healthy’, ‘natural’ and ‘sustainable’? Really? Who are they trying to kid? How about ‘unhealthy’, ‘unnatural’ and ‘unsustainable’?

Unhealthy

Red grouse are shot with lead ammunition. Lead is a poison. Lead is highly toxic to humans. The health risk of lead poisoning has been well-documented and has resulted in the removal of lead from petrol, paint, fishing weights and water pipes. In 2012, the Food Standards Agency published guidance on eating game shot with lead ammunition:

“The Food Standards Agency is advising people that eating lead-shot game on a frequent basis can expose them to potentially harmful levels of lead. The FSA’s advice is that frequent consumers of lead-shot game should eat less of this type of meat” (see here, here and particularly here).

Red grouse on intensively managed driven grouse moors are also routinely exposed to chemicals in the form of medicated grit. The chemicals in this grit are used to kill the parasitic strongyle worm. This drug is highly persistent, according to SLE (see here). Moorland managers are advised to remove the medicated grit one month before the start of the grouse-shooting season. Who decided one month was a suitable period of time for withdrawal and who monitors whether the medicated grit is actually being withdrawn at that time? Is there any information about the effect on humans from eating red grouse that have residual levels of medicated grit still in their bodies?

There’s also a new disease spreading through red grouse populations – ‘respiratory cryptosporidiosis’, also known as ‘bulgy eye’. Apparently the protozoan responsible isn’t known to be infectious to humans (see here) and a prominent figure from the grouse-shooting industry claims ‘grouse are perfectly safe to eat if they are diseased [with bulgy eye]’ (see here). Hmm, sounds yummy. Wonder what his medical qualifications are?

Does any of this convince you that eating red grouse is a ‘healthy’ option?

Unnatural

Red grouse is frequently described as ‘natural’ by those with a vested interest in driven grouse shooting. It might be considered ‘natural’ if it has been killed by walked-up shooting but what about the grouse that have been killed by driven grouse shooting? Intensively managed driven grouse moors are anything but natural. Red grouse are found in artificially-high densities on these moors as a result of several unnatural management techniques, including the use of medicated grit (see above), the frequent burning of heather (see here for the environmental damage caused by this practice), the [legal] and unregulated annual mass slaughter of predators (foxes, stoats, weasels, corvids) and mountain hares, not to mention, of course, the widespread illegal killing of raptors.

What’s ‘natural’ about red grouse that have been shot on an intensively driven grouse moor?

Unsustainable

Concerns over the unsustainability of driven grouse shooting are growing – so much so that Marks & Spencer removed red grouse from sale last year (see here) because they weren’t able to guarantee their grouse had come from a responsible, sustainable source. There are plenty of other concerns, too (see here for a good overview).

So how does SNH justify its claim that red grouse have been ‘sustainably’ harvested?

What on earth is SNH playing at? Why is this statutory conservation agency actively promoting an industry with such shocking ecological credentials and claiming that eating this product (red grouse) is good for us and good for the environment?  Let’s ask them. Emails to SNH Chief Executive Susan Davies: susan.davies@snh.gov.uk

Henry’s Tour day 53: Occupy the butts!

Friday 26 June 2015 Copy

Occupy the butts!

Go to a grouse moor, find a grouse butt, take a photograph of yourself occupying the butt, send in the photograph to this website.

Finding one of these butts is easy – you don’t have to walk for miles across the moors – a lot of them are right there by the roadside. Grouse butts are normally marked on OS maps at 1:25000 scale. Try http://www.streetmap.co.uk and zoom in on your favourite moor.

It’s not illegal to stand in a grouse butt and take a photograph, as long as you are not damaging it nor interfering with ‘lawful activity’ (i.e. disrupting a driven grouse shoot). We’d encourage you to visit a grouse butt at any time between now and Hen Harrier Day (Sun 9th August) – just over 6 weeks away – before the shooting starts on 12th August.

‘Man’ charged after six dead dogs found in kennel, starved to death

A 28 year old Stirlingshire man has been charged with causing the death of six dogs which were found dead in a kennel. They are believed to have starved to death.

In addition to 11 alleged animal cruelty offences, the man, unnamed for legal reasons, has also been charged with two wildlife crime offences related to the alleged illegal use of snares.

Full story in Daily Record here.

You might wonder why we’re blogging about this case. That will become clear as the case progresses. One to watch.