Category: News

Gamebird releases: Parliamentary questions for Scottish Government

At the end of October 2020, campaign group Wild Justice secured an historic environmental legal victory when DEFRA agreed to licence the annual release of some 60 million pheasants and red-legged partridges, to control ecological damage to wildlife sites (see here).

[Captive-reared poults waiting to be put inside a release pen in a Scottish forest. They’ll stay there for a few months before being let out, chased and shot, all in the name of sport. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

While we await the details of that proposed licensing scheme from DEFRA, politicians in the devolved countries are also paying close attention to what’s going on.

Mark Ruskell MSP (Scottish Greens) has lodged a series of Parliamentary questions on this topic, as follows:

S5W-33328 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government what steps it plans to take to address the negative effects of gamebird releases within (a) European protected sites and (b) a 500m buffer zone around European protected sites, and (a) when and (b) how it will amend section 14(2A) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as amended for Scotland.

S5W-33329 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government whether it (a) is aware of and (b) had any role in the UK Government’s review into how gamebird releases on or near European protected sites are managed, the conclusion of which was announced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 30 October 2020.

S5W-33330 Mark Ruskell: To ask the Scottish Government what evidence it is aware of that the conclusions of the UK Government’s review into how gamebird releases on or near European protected sites are managed are consistent with the likely impacts on such sites in Scotland.

The expected answer date for these questions is 2nd December 2020.

Yet another red kite found poisoned in North Yorkshire

Yet another raptor persecution case from North Yorkshire, and yet another crime committed as part of a reported ‘surge’ of similar crimes recorded during the first period of lockdown (e.g. see here and here).

This time it’s a red kite that was found dying in April 2020 at Scampston, near Malton, to the south of the North York Moors National Park.

[Photos via Jean Thorpe]

Her corpse was sent for toxicology at the Government’s Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WIIS) and the results have apparently just been released (presumably delayed due to Covid19).

She was poisoned by a mix of Brodifacoum and Bendiocarb ‘in quantities that would not be consistent with an accidental incident’, writes Jean Thorpe from Ryedale Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre.

Anybody with information about this crime please contact Police Wildlife Crime Officer Jez Walmsley at Malton Police Station (Tel: 101) and quote incident reference #12200055801.

Scottish Government to respond to Werritty Review on Thursday 26th November

In a bit of a surprise move, the Scottish Government intends to issue a long-awaited formal statement on the Werritty Review of grouse moor management this Thursday (26 November 2020).

It will come in the form of a Ministerial statement during Portfolio Questions, probably around 3pm.

The timing of this is really very interesting. Could it be an indication of ‘good news’? The “decisive action” promised by Environment Cab Sec Roseanna Cunningham back in August (here) in response to the volume of letters she received from the public following the appalling news that an iconic white-tailed eagle had been found illegally poisoned with a banned toxin on a grouse moor inside the Cairngorms National Park?

If it was going to be ‘bad news’ (e.g. the Government has decided to do absolutely nothing of any significance in response to the Werritty Review except kick the can a bit further down an already very long road), I’d have expected them to put something out with little fanfare at 5pm on 23rd December when everyone’s focus will be elsewhere.

Or could this impending statement be timed to offset a potential rebellion from grassroots members at the SNP’s annual conference at the end of this month? There has been a lot of upset after a motion to ban driven grouse shooting, endorsed by 25 regional groups, was ‘watered down’ by the Government earlier this month (see here). A statement of strong intent to actually do something, now, would probably soothe some rising voices.

It’s also quite telling that a senior civil servant has been making direct contact with some of us, quite openly, to give us the heads up that this announcement will be made on Thursday. In the ten years I’ve been writing this blog I’ve never once been given ‘official’ notice of an impending Ministerial statement. It’s clear the Scottish Government wants us to be watching and I see that as a good indication of what might be coming. Otherwise, why bother telling us in advance?

To be clear, I don’t know what the Minister will say and nor does anybody else I’ve spoken to in recent days, or if they do, they’re not saying. Whichever way this goes, it’s going to be massive.

All eyes on the Scottish Parliament on Thursday. You can watch it live from the Chamber here and I’d guess that there’s a good chance an accompanying written statement will be posted on the Scottish Government website around 3pm.

Laughable denial of raptor killing from grouse moor lobby group in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary

Last week the BBC Alba’s current affairs programme Eòrpa had a 14-minute feature on the debate around driven grouse shooting in Scotland.

The programme is available to watch on BBC iPlayer for the next 28 days (see here, starts at 00.53 mins to 14.45).

It was good to see yet more exposure of this environmental train wreck and this was a pretty good feature because it included a variety of talking heads and gave some of them enough time to hang themselves.

The line-up included Tim (Kim) Baynes (Director Scottish Moorland Group, Scottish Land & Estates, Gift of Grouse), Jenny McCallum (Spokesperson for Loch Ness Rural Communities, one of the regional gamekeeper moorland groups), Professor Allan Werritty (Chair, Grouse Moor Management Review Group), Alison Johnstone MSP (Scottish Greens), Duncan Orr-Ewing (RSPB Scotland), Angus MacLeod (Barvas & Garynahine Estate, Isle of Lewis), Malcolm Combe (University Strathclyde Law School) and Fabien Chaudre (French Agency for Biodiversity).

A highlight was Alison Johnstone’s sarcasm about the concept of driven grouse shooting (see at 5.19 mins) but even she couldn’t top the comedic contribution of Tim (Kim) Baynes, whose straight-faced denial of ongoing raptor persecution on grouse moors, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, was as entertaining as watching Donald Trump declare himself the election victor.

Here’s what Tim (Kim) had to say:

“A generation ago, or two generations ago, the control of birds of prey was fairly routine whether it was for game management, or sheep management, or livestock, but there’s been a huge change in that over the last generation and particularly over the last five to ten years where people have realised that this is not the way to go, they’ve learnt more about the relationships between birds of prey and other species. There will always be these tensions between management activities and birds of prey but I think that people have really realised now that this is, you can’t, you simply can’t go out and kill them and it really very rarely happens now“.

Of course, for those of us who take an interest in this subject, this bare-faced denial is what we’ve come to expect from Tim (Kim) and his ridiculous grouse lobby pals, e.g. see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here for a dazzling array of previous denials and spin.

Tim’s (Kim’s) performance on Eòrpa and all these previous years of denial provide a perfect illustration of how the grouse shooting industry has fundamentally failed to self-regulate. ‘Deny everything and carry on’, appears to have been the mantra.

It’s also a perfect illustration of why the Scottish Government, having given the industry chance after chance after chance after chance to clean up its act, is now under unprecedented public pressure to finally act.

And the funniest thing of all of it? All these denials from the Scottish Moorland Group, whose Chair, for years, has been Lord Hopetoun of Leadhills Estate.

You couldn’t make it up.

Sainsbury’s refuses to address concerns about selling potentially toxic gamebirds

It’s UK game week so it seems timely to re-visit the Sainsbury’s saga.

UK supermarket Sainsbury’s is selling gamebird meat which is potentially contaminated with toxic, poisonous lead shot.

The product of interest is this diced game casserole, produced by Home Farmed Venison in North Yorkshire and kitemarked by the British Game Alliance, which claims to be the official marketing board for the game shooting industry.

[Photos by Ruth Tingay]

It’s not illegal to sell toxic, lead-contaminated game meat; lots of supermarkets sell lead-contaminated gamebirds, although the more ethically responsible ones (Waitrose) have committed to selling lead-free meat by 2021 and the contaminated stuff they currently sell at least comes with a proper health warning (e.g. see here for the warning about toxic lead shot in the Waitrose Xmas pheasant).

It’s a bit like fags really. You can still buy them but they have to contain a public health warning. But unlike fags, poisonous game meat is still on full display on supermarket shelves and is often being marketed as the ‘healthy’ option!!

The game meat on sale at Sainsbury’s is of particular interest for two reasons.

(1) It’s the first time that a British Game Alliance-endorsed product has been promoted in a UK supermarket, and given the lack of transparency and confidence in this ‘official marketing board’ it is obviously going to lead to questions.

(2) There is no warning on the packaging about the product containing poisonous lead shot.

Two earlier blogs on Sainsbury’s game meat (here and here) have revealed an alarming unwillingness from Sainsbury’s to address the concerns.

Sainsbury’s did respond to questions, but to be perfectly frank the answers given were pretty unconvincing and Sainsbury’s has now told one of our blog readers,

‘At present Sainsbury’s will not be providing any further update regarding your concerns, and we would encourage any further questions to be directed to Holme Farmed Vension, through their customer helpline‘.

Wow. And this is the supermarket that claims it wants to be ‘the UK’s most trusted retailer’.

Several blog readers have pointed out that this mixed game casserole is no longer available on Sainsbury’s website and have suggested this may be connected to the questions being asked of Sainsbury’s. This seems unlikely given that the casserole is still available in the supermarkets and its removal from the online store may instead simply be a result of a diminishing supply due to Covid restrictions.

Needless to say, there is now great interest in finding out whether Sainsbury’s claim that ‘there is no lead shot in this product’ is based on fact or wishful thinking.

There’ll be more on this in due course.

Westminster debate on moorland burning doesn’t go the grouse shooters’ way

Last Wednesday Olivia Blake MP (Labour, Sheffield Hallam) opened a debate in Westminster Hall calling for the Government to put a stop to moorland burning, including the burning of heather on upland grouse moors.

It didn’t go the grouse shooters’ way, as even The Telegraph had to admit with these headlines:

It’s been a year since the Westminster Government committed to banning burning on peatlands, including the deliberate rotational burning on blanket bog (see here). However, nothing has happened and Ministers have been accused of stalling to protect grouse moor owners (see here).

Wednesday’s debate was interesting for a number of reasons, but perhaps most significantly because it contrasted so clearly from the last big debate in this Hall where grouse shooting interests were on full dishonourable display. There was no braying or table-thumping this time, and those with clear vested interests are of course no longer even in the building (e.g. Benyon, Soames).

The debate transcript can be read here, although for those who follow this subject there won’t be any surprises, until you get to the Minister’s bit towards the end.

Amazingly, Minister Rebecca Pow didn’t spend the session looking wholly disinterested in the topic, examining the contents of her handbag and then dismissing the debate out of hand (a la former Environment Minister Therese Coffey). Instead, she appeared to listen and then engaged respectfully with all the debaters before hinting, strongly, that the science shows that keeping peat bogs wet is a much better idea for tackling climate change than setting fire to them every year.

It’s a view shared by the Climate Change Committee (here) and DEFRA Minister Zac Goldsmith, who only a few days ago repeated his commitment to a ban on grouse moor burning (here).

Are we poised to finally seeing some action on this from the Westminster Government, and will it happen before the Scottish Government even comments on the same topic via its response to the Werritty Review?

Scottish National Party blocks declaration of ‘nature emergency’

A few days ago the Scottish Greens announced that Mark Ruskell MSP was putting forward a Parliamentary motion for there to be a declaration of a ‘nature emergency’ (see here).

Here’s the proposed motion:

The cross-party debate took place in the Holyrood chamber yesterday afternoon. You can watch a video of the archived session here and the transcript is available here:

nature-emergency-debate-scot-parl-18nov2020Download

If you don’t have the time to watch the video I’d thoroughly recommend reading the transcript – it’s quite enlightening. There’s a fair bit of chat about the Werritty Review and at one point Environment Minister Mairi Gougeon explains that the Government’s delay in responding to it (one year and still waiting) is not just because of Covid19 interruptions but apparently because the review contained more than one recommendation for the Government to consider(!).

Good grief. It’s not as though any of those recommendations in the Werritty Review were new ideas or that the Scottish Government has had, literally, years to think about these issues.

The Scottish Greens have issued a press release in response to yesterday’s debate, as follows:

SNP blocks declaration of a nature emergency

The Scottish Parliament has missed the opportunity to declare a nature emergency, after the SNP blocked the vote with an amendment congratulating the Scottish Government instead.

If passed, the Scottish Green motion would have made Scotland the first country to formally recognise the rapid decline in species populations as an emergency.

However, the proposal was defeated after the Conservatives backed a Scottish Government amendment which removed the words ‘nature emergency’, and other parties refused to commit to radical action required to halt and reverse the decline. 

MSPs therefore voted against calling a halt to practices which are environmentally damaging such as driven grouse shooting, large-scale peat extraction and damaging fishing practices such as dredging. 

Speaking afterwards, Scottish Greens environment spokesperson Mark Ruskell said: “While I’m proud that the Greens brought this issue to parliament, I’m extremely disappointed that Scotland has not declared a nature emergency when the evidence on species decline is so clear.

“It was truly shocking to see SNP ministers congratulating themselves on their inadequate efforts, when their own data shows an alarming decline in species and a shocking loss of biodiversity. 

“It is clear that only the Scottish Greens are committed to actions such as ending the scourge of Scotland’s grouse moors, and we will put our commitment to acting on the nature emergency in our manifesto.”

ENDS

Shot buzzard found dead in Peak District National Park

Press release from RSPB (19 Nov 2020)

Young buzzard found dead had been illegally shot

The RSPB is appealing for information regarding the death of a protected buzzard in Little Hayfield, within the Peak District National Park between Manchester and Sheffield.

A local resident found the buzzard, a juvenile which had hatched this summer, freshly dead on 5 September 2020, in a paddock adjacent to woodland and a driven grouse moor. They contacted Derbyshire Police on 101 and reported it to the RSPB. The body was x-rayed by a local vet who identified a broken leg and a piece of lead shot lodged within the bird’s chest. It is possible that the injuries were sustained at different times during the bird’s short life.

All birds of prey are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. To intentionally kill or injure one is a criminal offence and could result in an unlimited fine or up to six months in jail.

Tom Grose, RSPB Investigations Officer, said: “This was a tragic end to the life of a young bird which had barely begun to spread its wings. The sight of a buzzard soaring overhead is part of the pleasure of being out in the Peak District. This is one of our most visited National Parks and should be a place people can go to enjoy nature, and a place in which nature is protected.

“Buzzards are sadly highly vulnerable to illegal killing, and RSPB data shows that more buzzards were the object of persecution in 2019 than any other raptor species. While it’s not clear whether shooting was the cause of death, it’s clear that this bird had been illegally shot at some point in its very short life. We are therefore appealing to the public for information.”

If you have any information relating to this or any other raptor persecution incident, call Derbyshire Police on 101.

If you find a wild bird of prey which you suspect has been illegally killed, contact RSPB Investigations at crime@rspb.org.uk or fill in the online form: https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/our-positions-and-campaigns/positions/wildbirdslaw/reportform.aspx

Alternatively, if you have sensitive information about this or any other raptor crime which you wish to share anonymously, you can call the confidential Raptor Crime Hotline: 0300 999 0101.

ENDS

Werritty review – one year on & still waiting for Scottish Government response

Today marks one year since the Werritty Review on grouse moor management was submitted to the Scottish Government. And still no formal response.

The review itself took two and a half years to complete after Environment Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham announced its commission in 2017, on the back of the publication of another Government-commissioned review which showed clear evidence of deliberate and sustained illegal raptor persecution on many driven grouse moors. We’ve since seen more evidence pointing towards the inevitable fate of those birds.

And that 2017 review had been commissioned on the back of an RSPB report in 2016 that over a period of five years since 2011, eight satellite-tagged golden eagles had ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances on grouse moors in the Monadhliaths in Highland Scotland.

The longer the Scottish Government delays taking evidence-based action against those criminals in the grouse shooting industry, the more eagles (and other raptors) are going to be illegally killed. There is absolutely no question that these crimes are continuing, despite enormous scrutiny and public condemnation, as demonstrated during lockdown when the poisoned corpse of a white-tailed sea eagle was found, face down, on a grouse moor in the middle of the Cairngorms National Park. Nobody has been charged for this horrendous crime. In fact there has never been a successful prosecution for killing an eagle in Scotland.

[A police officer examines the corpse of the poisoned white-tailed eagle, found dead on a grouse moor in the Cairngorms National Park]

For years the Scottish Government has promised further action if current measures proved to be ineffective. Time and time again, after each crime has been publicised, a succession of Environment Ministers has proclaimed, ‘We will not tolerate illegal raptor persecution’ and ‘We will not hesitate to act‘ (see here for a long list of examples).

And guess what? They’re still tolerating it and they’re still hesitating to act. Why is that?

Derbyshire man due in court in February for alleged theft of peregrine eggs in Peak District

Earlier this year Derbyshire Constabulary reported the theft of peregrine eggs from three different nests in the Peak District National Park (see here).

[Photograph by Barb Baldinger]

Ten days ago the police wrote on Facebook that an unnamed man had been charged in connection with the egg theft and also for a firearms offence. The suspect was identified after the RSPB had filmed an individual robbing one of the nests (see here).

This afternoon Derbyshire Constabulary issued a more formal statement on its website, as follows:

Man charged for theft of Peregrine Falcon eggs

A man has been charged with theft in connection with an incident in the spring where Peregrine Falcon eggs were allegedly stolen in the Peak District.

John Fenton, of Bridgemont, Whaley Bridge, was charged with the offence following an investigation by the Derbyshire Rural Crime Team and work by the RSPB.

It follows an incident in the Stoney Middleton area in May earlier this year.

Detective Constable Paul Flint of the Derbyshire Rural Crime Team said: “We take all reports of wildlife crime seriously and will seek to take action against offenders. This is a senseless crime and will not be tolerated. We would like to thank the RSPB for their support throughout.”

The 60-year-old is due to appear before magistrates at Chesterfield Justice Centre in February next year.

ENDS

As this is a live prosecution no comments will be published until criminal proceedings have ended.

UPDATE 20th February 2021: Trial date set as man pleads not guilty to theft of peregrine eggs in Peak District National Park (here)