Category: News

New study shows pheasants still full of poisonous lead shot one year after start of ‘voluntary transition’ to non-toxic shot

A year ago, nine UK game-shooting organisations made a massive u-turn after years and years and years of defending the use of toxic lead ammunition, and said they wanted to drag the industry into the 21st Century by making a five-year voluntary transition away from lead ammunition (see here).

A lot of us were sceptical because (a) we rarely trust anything the industry tells us; (b) previous ‘voluntary bans’ by the industry on a number of issues have been unsuccessful (e.g. see here, here and here); (c) the ongoing failure of the shooting industry to comply with current regulations on many issues, including the use of lead ammunition over wetlands (here), means there should be absolutely zero confidence in its ability and/or willingness to stick to any notional voluntary ban; (d) the Scottish Gamekeepers Association refused to sign up to the proposed five-year transition period because they believe there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that lead can have damaging impacts on humans, wildlife and the environment (here); and (e) in the very same year that nine shooting organisations committed to the five-year transition, BASC announced it was set to fight a proposed EU ban on the use of lead ammunition on wetlands (see here).

Fortunately for us, a new project has been established to monitor the professed voluntary five-year transition from toxic lead to non-lead ammunition in the UK. Called SHOT-SWITCH, the project intends to test wild-shot pheasants offered for sale across Britain each year and determine if they have been killed using toxic lead or non-lead shotgun ammunition. Interestingly, the project is supported by funds from the RSPB, Waitrose (who you’ll recall are the only supermarket to be heading towards a ban on selling game meat shot with lead ammunition (see here) and Lincolnshire Game.

To find out more about the SHOT-SWITCH project please visit the webpage here

The project is being led by three prominent scientists who have been studying the effects of toxic lead ammunition for years – Professor Rhys Green, Professor Debbie Pain and Dr Mark Taggart – and today they have published the results of the first year’s study.

It doesn’t look good for the shooting industry. Of 180 pheasant carcasses examined, 179 were shot with lead ammunition.

These results have been reported in the press (BBC news here) and Mark Avery’s take is also well worth a read (here).

[Lead shot pellets removed from a pheasant carcass. Photo by Rhys Green]

The study results have been published by Conservation Evidence and the paper is open access, meaning nobody has to pay to read it.

I thoroughly recommend reading it – especially the introductory background section which provides a well-written overview of the recent science and politics associated with this issue. The paper can be downloaded here:

green-et-al_cej_18_1_9Download

Project SHOT-SWITCH is completely separate to Wild Justice’s project examining Sainsbury’s gamebird meat for toxic lead ammunition (see here) although obviously there are many parallels.

Moffat to be celebrated as ‘Eagle Town’ during golden eagle festival

The UK’s first golden eagle festival will take place later this year, celebrating the town of Moffat being named as an ‘Eagle Town’ as part of a plan to boost eco-tourism to the area.

Moffat has been chosen as it’s close to the original release site for translocated golden eagles, brought down from the Highlands and released in South Scotland to boost the tiny, remnant population that had previously been ravaged by illegal persecution and of which there is still evidence to suggest an on-going intolerance of golden eagles in some areas (see here).

The five-year translocation project is being led by a coalition of groups under the banner of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project and this is also the group organising the golden eagle festival.

The event will take place between 19-26th September 2021 and wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan has been signed up to deliver the online keynote speech. He said:

“I’m delighted to be part of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project’s first ever Golden Eagle Festival and to support their important conservation work to ensure golden eagles once again flourish in southern skies.

The thrill of seeing a golden eagle soaring over a Scottish hillside is an unbeatable experience.

Each glimpse of this magical bird is special, but they should and could be more common in the south of Scotland.”

More details about the festival will be publicised later in the year. It’s worth keeping an eye on the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project website for info.

Scottish gamekeepers’ petition calling for independent monitoring of raptor satellite tags is ‘fact-free nonsense’

One of the petitions under consideration tomorrow by the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change & Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee is PE01750 – Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors – submitted by Alex Hogg on behalf of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA).

I’ve written about this petition before (here), back in late 2019 when it was first lodged, as did Ian Thomson, Head of Investigations at RSPB Scotland (here). It’s useful background reading for those with more than a passing interest.

As a brief summary, satellite-tagged raptors have caused the grouse-shooting industry all sorts of pain in recent years, because scientists have been able to use the analysis of extensive tag data to expose the scale of previously-hidden raptor persecution on or close to some driven grouse moors, even when the raptor-killing criminals thought they’d done a good clean-up job by destroying and removing the raptor corpse and the tag. Although sometimes the clean-up job wasn’t done so well, as evidenced last year by the discovery of a golden eagle’s satellite tag, its harness cut, wrapped in lead sheeting (to block the signal) and dumped in a river (see here and here).

Two significant scientific reviews based on tag analysis have identified illegal persecution hotspots for golden eagles (here) and hen harriers (here) in the UK. And indeed, the whole Werritty Review in to whether grouse moors should be licensed was triggered in 2017 by research that demonstrated almost one third of tagged golden eagles had ‘vanished’ in suspicious geographic clusters that were also areas being managed for driven grouse shooting and at a rate 25 times higher than anywhere else in the world.

Raptor persecution crimes in the UK continue to attract huge media attention because it’s hard to believe that people are still poisoning eagles in Scotland in the 21st century. As a result of this ongoing publicity, the game-shooting industry has spent considerable time and effort trying to undermine the satellite-tagging of raptors, either by launching disgusting personal & abusive attacks and by making outrageous defamatory claims targeted against named individuals involved in the projects, or by blaming disappearances on imaginary windfarms, faulty sat tags fitted to turtles in India & ‘bird activists‘ trying to smear gamekeepers, or by claiming that those involved have perverted the course of justice by fabricating evidence, or by claiming that raptor satellite-tagging should be banned because it’s ‘cruel’ and the tag data serve no purpose other than to try and entrap gamekeepers. There have also been two laughable attempts to discredit the authoritative golden eagle satellite tag review (here and here), thankfully dismissed by the Scottish Government. The grouse shooting industry knows how incriminating these sat tag data are and so is trying to do everything in its power to corrode public and political confidence in (a) the tag data and (b) the justification for fitting sat tags to raptors, hence this latest petition from the SGA.

What hasn’t previously been made public, but can be now as the papers have been published on the ECCLR Committee’s website, is a formal response to the SGA’s petition by the Golden Eagle Satellite Tag Group (GESTG), a research group established in Scotland by scientists as a forum for data exchange, tagging coordination and general cooperation.

The GESTG’s response takes apart the SGA’s petition pretty much line by line and eviscerates it. You almost feel sorry for the SGA, who up until last Thursday wouldn’t have known that this response even existed. It is a masterclass, and you have to admire the restraint behind the summary dismissal of the petition as ‘fact-free nonsense’.

There’s some other paperwork of interest, too. A letter to the ECCLR Committee from Ian Thomson (Feb 2020) and a letter from me (Feb 2021), pointing out to the Committee that despite the SGA’s misinformed rants and smears, raptor satellite-taggers in Scotland were told recently by NatureScot (formerly SNH) that neither NatureScot nor Police Scotland had any substantive concerns about the way we operate and communicate with the licensing and police authorities.

You can download the documents here:

pe01750-sga-independent-monitoring-raptor-satellite-tagsDownload
pe01750_gestg_response-letter-feb2020Download
pe01750_rspbscotland_response-letter-feb-2020Download
pe01750_drruthtingay_response-letter-feb-2021Download

The ECCLR Committee’s virtual meeting starts tomorrow at 9am. The meeting papers can be viewed here and the meeting can be watched live here.

Transcripts from the meeting will be posted here when available and I’ll be blogging about the Committee’s decision on this petition and a number of others of interest.

UPDATE 1st July 2022: Scottish Parliament sees sense and closes SGA’s petition seeking ‘Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors’ (here).

Summary of petitions under consideration by Scottish Parliament’s Environment Committee on Tuesday

Last week I wrote about the Scottish Parliament’s forthcoming Environment, Climate Change & Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee meeting on Tuesday 23rd, when a selection of petitions will be considered including several of significant interest to this blog (see here), including gamebird licencing, mountain hares, wildlife crime penalties, raptor satellite tagging, and wildlife killing on grouse moors.

The official meeting papers have now been published on the ECCLR website and within those papers are recommendations for the Committee to consider for each of the petitions under consideration.

I’ll be discussing the petition from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association calling for ‘Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors’ on this blog tomorrow and of course will be reporting on the ECCLR Committee’s decisions on the other relevant petitions after the meeting on Tuesday.

For now, here are the recommendations:

UPDATE 22nd February 2021: Scottish gamekeepers’ petition calling for independent monitoring of raptor satellite tags is ‘fact-free nonsense’ (here)

‘How grouse shooters are threatening UK’s wildlife’

Another new article, another new audience.

This time it’s an article published yesterday on Mancunian Matters, an online news website covering the Greater Manchester region.

Journalist Deniz Kose focuses attention on the work of local group Moorland Monitors, who describe themselves as a ‘grassroots community network working to protect persecuted wild species and wild spaces on driven grouse shooting estates’.

The article is worth a read (here) – it includes commentary from volunteer Bob Berzins about South Yorkshire Police’s ‘failure to act’ after the discovery of several illegally-set spring traps on a grouse moor in January 2019, which again serves to highlight the stark contrast between police forces – some are excellent and always right on top of their game, others, well, not so much, not all of the time.

It’s been that way for years, with enforcement in some forces seemingly based on an individual officer’s personality and/or links to the shooting industry rather than on upholding statutory regulation. It’s an issue that Chief Inspector Kevin Kelly, the new head of the National Wildlife Crime Unit, needs to get to grips with.

The Mancunian Matters article is likely to rile up the grouse shooting industry, not just because of its provocative headline but because it’s based on the testimony of the Moorland Monitors – a group that is utterly despised by the shooting industry. So much so that the Countryside Alliance, notorious for its unpleasantness, launched an e-lobby campaign in early February urging members to sign a petition asking Patagonia’s CEO to ‘immediately end both its promotion of, and working relationship with, Moorland Monitors’ after they found out that Patagonia had given a grant to the Moorland Monitors to help fund their work. Interestingly, the petition now seems to have vanished and Patagonia is still promoting the Moorland Monitors on the Patagonia website (here).

Still, I’ll bet that the hysteria generated by the Mancunian Matters article will be nothing in comparison to that generated yesterday by me posting the video of The Lounge Society, a teenage punk band from Yorkshire expressing their creative views on grouse shooting (see here).

In the video, the teenagers depict grouse shooters as rich, greedy, alcohol-swigging, blue-blooded, tweed-wearing toffs (that’s their interpretation, not mine) and the red grouse are symbolised by four lads (the band) wearing red/orange jumpsuits (the red grouse, geddit?). The grouse shooters use fake guns and pretend to chase, shoot and kill the lads in the red/orange jumpsuits (the grouse). But when the grouse shooters are sitting enjoying their lunch, the lads in red/orange jumpsuits (the grouse) come back to life and use fake guns to shoot the grouse shooters before walking off in to the sunset.

By sharing this video on this blog (and that’s all I did – share a video that’s been online for months – I didn’t produce or direct it!) according to some grouse shooting industry trolls it’s an indication that I’m ‘inciting violence against gamekeepers‘ and that I should be reported to the police, Government Ministers and probably MI5. Honestly, that is what has been written! These guys need to get a grip. It is interesting, though, to see them go in to meltdown over a music video showing some lads, representing zombie red grouse, using fake guns to pretend to shoot at some fake grouse shooters, but when real threats are made to real people, in real life, by people with access to real guns, (e.g. see here and here) not a word is spoken.

I think that puts the faux outrage in to perspective, don’t you? Especially when those real threats have come from some of the very same people now crying over a music video.

For those who missed it, here’s the video again. Take a look and make up your own mind:

The Lounge Society: teenage punk band in Yorkshire takes on grouse shooting

More and more, we’re seeing local residents and moorland communities finding courage and speaking out against the grouse shooting culture and its associated criminality that dominates and damages their daily lives.

We’ve heard from local communities in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (see here and here), from a community in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (see here), from a local community in the North York Moors National Park (here), and from the community at Leadhills in South Lanarkshire (here).

Here’s another example, this time from a punk band (The Lounge Society) created by teenagers who’ve grown up in West Yorkshire’s Pennine towns.

[Photo by Piran Aston]

The Lounge Society have a single out called Burn the Heather and according to an interview they’ve done with the NME ‘it takes aim at local landowners’ pre-grouse shooting ritual of burning the moor-top heather, with deerstalkers, wellies and tweed jackets in the accompanying video’.

NME asked guitarist Herbie May, ‘How did Burn the Heather come to be and what was the story behind that?’

Here’s his response:

“There’s a continuing trend where a lot of wealthy local landowners will burn a lot of land for the sake of a bloodsport essentially to shoot grouse and other birds. That contributes to flooding and it’s generally very unpleasant and it can give rural areas a bit of a bad name and we wanted to express how ugly that is. It was just a local teenagers perspective on that lyrically. The groove is quite important to the track itself and to a lot of our music. We really set out to make people dance and make you move while getting across what we wanted to say about local issues and if that has any connection to issues which affect small towns everywhere“.

NME: I guess it smartly loops it into the wider political dialogue right now in many ways? 

Herbie May: “It is something that has gone on in the Tory party, over lockdown there were certain rules which seemed to specifically protect fox hunting. For a time you were allowed to go fox hunting but you weren’t able to play football in the park with your mates, so it does apply in other areas albeit in slightly different physical manifestations. The idea that there’s a class of people that have that much desire to kill living animals to the extent of making such brazen acts like that, it is shocking“.

To read the full NME interview please click here

UPDATE 21st February 2021: There’s more commentary about this video and the shooting industry’s irrational, hysterical meltdown about it here

Trial date set as man pleads not guilty to theft of peregrine eggs in Peak District National Park

A trial date has been set after a 60-year-old man pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges relating to the alleged theft of peregrine eggs in the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire last spring (see here).

Proceedings were brought following an investigation by Derbyshire Constabulary, supported by video evidence provided by the RSPB.

A trial date has been set for 28th July 2021.

NB: As this is a live case comments won’t be published until criminal proceedings have ended, thanks.

Gamekeepers lead disgusting hate campaign against conservationists (2)

WARNING: For those of a sensitive disposition this post will contain examples of grossly offensive material so if you’re likely to get upset by reading it I’d suggest you don’t go any further than this point.

Today’s post is a follow-on from last week’s post (Gamekeepers lead disgusting hate campaign against conservationists (1)) where I documented some of the abuse and harassment that has been levelled at me over the last six years because I campaign for an end to the illegal killing of raptors on game-shooting estates. Today’s post will focus on some of the abuse that’s been directed at my colleague Chris Packham and his step-daughter, Megan McCubbin.

These posts have been prompted by a recent campaign by gamekeepers complaining, with straight faces, that they are the victims of unfair abuse (see here).

Chris is no stranger to receiving harassment from the game-shooting and hunting industries for simply expressing his views and campaigning against animal cruelty and environmental destruction. The abuse has been going on for years:

The abuse comes from a variety of individuals with links to these industries, including these examples from Geva Blackett, former parliamentary officer for the SGA, married to Invercauld Estate’s factor (now retired), an SNP Councillor in Aberdeenshire and the former Deputy Convenor of the Cairngorms National Park Authority:

A common theme of attack has been in the form of petitions calling for the BBC to sack him (e.g. here) or ‘rein him in’ (e.g. here) and formal complaints being made to the BBC Trust (but not being upheld – see here and here) and much of this has been led by shooting industry groups such as the Countryside Alliance, Moorland Association, GWCT and BASC.

It’s little wonder, then, when the industry’s ‘leading’ organisations and prominent players are pursuing a hate campaign against Chris that gamekeepers and their supporters would also join in. One example was a gang of gamekeepers and their supporters who gathered outside a venue where Chris was working in Harrogate, shouting through a loud hailer about perceived job losses and who were so threatening that venue staff called the police to attend (see here). The irony of protesting about perceived job loss from an industry that has campaigned for Chris to lose his, wasn’t lost on any of us.

The abuse has certainly increased since Wild Justice launched in 2019 and some of that is well-documented, (e.g. see here but beware, it’s particularly unpleasant) and has included dead animals tied to his gate at home (e.g. see here and here), dead animals dumped on his drive (e.g. see here), human excrement sent through the post as well as a menacingly chilling death threat letter (see here).

His address has also been circulated on social media as have photographs of his driveway and gate.

All of this harassment, and other things that can’t yet be publicly divulged due to ongoing legal action, has been reported to the police.

More recently, the abuse has spread towards his step-daughter, Megan, and again this is likely to have been prompted by a particularly nasty attack on Megan published on the BASC website last year (here).

EVIDENCED EXAMPLES

This libellous post was written by Bert Burnett, a former Director of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association and a current columnist for the SGA’s quarterly rag for members, who routinely targets Chris, me, Wild Justice, RSPB and the Scottish Raptor Study Group:

Here’s Bert Burnett again with his vile, misogynistic language. Note the entry from ‘Glen Ample’ – this is the Facebook account of one Mike Holliday, a gamekeeper from Perthshire and a BASC Working Group member who recently wrote a letter of complaint to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon about the online abuse he and his colleagues had apparently suffered from ‘animal rights extremists’. I’ll be writing more about Mr Holliday and his own behaviour on social media in due course.

The following repulsive examples are from individuals who identify themselves as gamekeepers or are associated with the gamekeeping ‘profession’:

This one is from Ronnie Kippen, a gamekeeper from the Strathbraan area of Perthshire and apparently a committee member of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association who has also featured in some recent GWCT propaganda. He published this appalling post on 3rd Feb 2021:

Can you imagine being Chris, or Megs, or their family members and friends having to read this malicious abuse every single day? Where are the leaders within the game-shooting industry, standing up and you know, leading?

Thankfully there is some humour to be found amongst all this depravity. The gamekeeper who posted this wasn’t quite up on world affairs and genuinely thought he was on to something, until his more informed mates pointed out the obvious:

I think that’s probably enough for today.

There’ll be further blogs in this series coming soon.

UPDATE 18th July 2021: Organised crime, harassment & intimidation – another day on the grouse moors (guest blog) (here)

Police confirm banned poison Carbofuran found on Leadhills Estate, again

Police Scotland have confirmed the discovery of the banned poison Carbofuran on Leadhills Estate, a grouse-shooting estate in South Lanarkshire that has been at the centre of police wildlife crime investigations at least 70 times since the early 2000s.

The highly dangerous poison, which even in tiny amounts can kill humans and animals, was discovered in July 2020. Police Scotland have told the Daily Record:

“We are aware of this incident and did investigate.

Forensics identified the substance as carbofuran, an illegal pesticide the use of which has been banned since 1991.

It is extremely concerning that this substance was found in a location which is accessible to the public. Anyone with further information about this incident should contact Police Scotland on 101.”

According to the Daily Record, ‘further enquiries were stopped after officers found no evidence to link the poison to any person or persons’.

There isn’t any explanation provided for why the public weren’t alerted to this discovery sooner.

As regular blog readers will know, Leadhills Estate is currently serving a three-year General Licence restriction, imposed in November 2019 following ‘clear evidence from Police Scotland that wildlife crimes had been committed on this estate’ (see here, here, and here). We know via FoI that one of the contributing factors to the decision to pull the GL was the discovery of the banned pesticide Carbosulfan in May 2019 (see here).

[Chris Packham holds a dead hen harrier whose leg was caught in an illegally-set trap on Leadhills Estate in May 2019. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

Since the General Licence restriction was imposed in late 2019, further alleged offences have been reported at Leadhills and are the subject of ongoing police investigations (see here) including the alleged shooting of a(nother) short-eared owl by a masked gunman on a quad bike as witnessed by a local resident and his eight year old son (see here).

And now the discovery of another batch of banned poison.

According to NatureScot’s Framework for GL Restrictions, ‘Individual restrictions will apply for a period of 3 years, but may be extended if evidence of further offences is obtained during this period’.

Let’s see whether NatureScot sees fit to extend the General Licence restriction at Leadhills Estate.

Petitions of interest to be heard next week at Scottish Parliament

A number of petitions, some of which have been live for several years and are of significant interest, will be considered next week at the Scottish Parliament.

The cross-party Environment, Climate Change, and Land Reform Committee (ECCLR) will be reviewing the status of these petitions that had previously been forwarded by the Petitions Committee. As we edge towards the end of the Parliamentary session, it may well be that the ECCLR Committee is trying to clear the decks – one of these petitions has been live since 2013!

Here’s the list:

PE1750: Independent monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors (submitted by Scottish Gamekeepers Association)

PE1755: Ban all single use plastics across Scotland (submitted by Stephen Henry)

PE1758: End greyhound racing in Scotland (submitted by Scotland Against Greyhound Racing)

PE1751: Create no wild camp zones in Scotland (submitted by Kirsteen Currie)

PE1762: End the killing of Wildlife on grouse moors and elsewhere in Scotland (submitted by OneKind)

PE1815: Translocate protected beavers to reduce licensed killing (submitted by Trees for Life)

PE1490: Control of wild goose numbers (submitted by Scottish Crofting Federation)

PE1615: State regulated licensing system for gamebird hunting (submitted by Scottish Raptor Study Group)

PE1664: Greater protection for mountain hares (submitted by OneKind)

PE1636: Require single use drinks cups to be biodegradable (submitted by Michael Traill)

PE1705: Wildlife crime – penalties and investigation (submitted by Alex Milne)

Certainly, some of these petitions could now be considered obsolete because progress has since been made, undoubtedly helped along by the petition itself. One of the petitions – the SGA’s embarrassingly ill-informed one about the monitoring of satellite tags fitted to raptors, will be discussed on here in the coming days.

The ECCLR Committee will meet on Tuesday 23rd February 2021 and I’ll add a video link here for those who wish to watch live proceedings. The official transcript will also be posted here when it becomes available.

UPDATE: The documents for the meeting on Tues 23rd February have now been published and are available to download here:

ecclr_2021.02.23_meeting_papers_publicDownload

UPDATE 21st February 2021: Summary of petitions under consideration by Scottish Parliament’s Environment Committee on Tuesday (here)

UPDATE 22nd February 2021: Scottish gamekeepers’ petition calling for independent monitoring of raptor satellite tags is ‘fact-free nonsense’ (here)