Further to the blog I wrote three days ago about a journalist digging around for a story on Chris Packham sniffing goshawks (yes, really – see here), well surprise, surprise, the Sunday Telegraph has published this pathetic piece today:
Here’s the text:
Presenter is referred to police after enthusiast claimed star disturbed rare goshawks on live TV
When Chris Packham appeared on The One Show with three goshawk chicks, the naturalist took great pride in showing how a bird of prey once near extinction in Britain is at last thriving.
But, that BBC recording is now at the centre of a police investigation over whether a wildlife crime – including the somewhat unusual practice of bird sniffing – was committed before the nation’s very eyes.
In the four minute and 30-second clip, Mr Packham, 62, took part in biometric tests on the woodland predators in the New Forest.
The Springwatch presenter sniffed one of three goshawks to detect their “characteristic scent or perfume” once they were weighed, sexed and ringed in line with a licence issued by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).
The clip, broadcast in June following a morning of filming, prompted a complaint to police that a filming licence may not have been obtained.
It was also suggested the time the birds were out of the nest and the “sniffing incident” amounted to a “disturbance” of a protected species.
Mr Packham has insisted no laws were broken, adding that those concerned about “goshawk welfare should worry less about a naturalist having an occasional sniff” and more about “widespread persecution” by some gamekeepers who have illegally killed goshawks.
The man who complained – a shooting enthusiast who does not want to be named for fear of reprisals – said: “I watched the programme and was struck by the way Mr Packham was handling and sniffing the birds. These birds are Schedule 1 protected and it is a crime to ‘intentionally or recklessly disturb at, on or near an active nest’.”
When the man contacted Natural England about a filming licence he was told: “I have checked our various systems and contacted potentially relevant groups within Natural England and have not been able to locate any relevant licences.”
Jemima Parry-Jones, a leading authority on birds of prey and conservation, said handling any wild bird must be done quickly, with the minimum of noise, numbers of people and interference to minimise the risk of harm.
“When the face of a human, effectively their only natural predator, appears over the edge of a nest it will cause them huge distress.
“There is absolutely no excuse for spending half a day filming like this.”
A Hampshire Police spokesman said: “We received a report on July 2 relating to an alleged offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is currently being reviewed by our Countrywatch team.”
Mr Packham told The Telegraph: “Raptor persecution is illegal yet every year a huge number of goshawks are killed by gamekeepers … not by scientists or people in the media. All three of these birds fledged the nest – lets hope they survive.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The One Show had permission to film and followed all protocols around filming wildlife.”
ENDS
It’s amusing that they used a quote from Jemima Parry Jones, instead of the response they received from a licensed goshawk ringer who they’d first approached for comment. You can imagine what he told them. It presumably didn’t fit the narrative so they went with Parry Jones – the woman who is running the hen harrier brood meddling trial in cahoots with the Moorland Association and who was quite happy to be filmed with the brood meddled hen harrier chicks for a Moorland Association propaganda video. Hypocritical? Yes, I think so.
I’d argue that there is “absolutely no excuse” for permanently removing entire broods of hen harrier chicks from their parents and holding them in captivity for several weeks and then releasing them back into the wild to be shot and killed by grouse moor gamekeepers, but that’s just my view. The irony of asking the brood-meddler-in-chief to comment on ‘disturbance’ to raptors won’t be lost on anyone.
The Sunday Telegraph article identifies the complainant as a ‘shooting enthusiast’, and that’s what’s key here. As I wrote a few days ago (here), if the shooting industry had the tiniest concern about goshawk welfare then they’d stop shooting, trapping and bludgeoning them to death.
Have they stopped? No, of course they haven’t. There’s even a forthcoming court case, in the next fortnight, of yet another gamekeeper accused of killing a goshawk.
It’s so obvious what the agenda is here – that this complaint was made by a member of the shooting industry as part of a long-running smear campaign against Chris Packham, in yet another feeble attempt to discredit him and/or have him sacked by the BBC. It’s no secret that the shooting industry despises Chris because he’s outspoken about their environmentally-damaging practices and also about their crimes, especially the continued illegal killing of birds of prey.
The shooting industry has taken a lot of hits recently and is floundering under the pressure, so its chosen course of action is to lash out. Chris Packham is an obvious target given his high profile and popularity amongst the British public, and his relentless campaigning for wildlife and the environment.
My interpretation is backed up by comments made on social media today by other ‘shooting enthusiasts’ in response to the article being published in the Sunday Telegraph:
This comment by Sarah Sullivan is particularly telling – I assume she’s referring to Chris winning his recent libel action but being left with mammoth costs as the two individuals he took action against immediately declared themselves bankrupt (although more on that in due course).
Even the main shooting organisations are brazenly encouraging their members to complain about Chris (and other high profile individuals, as well as the RSPB), as demonstrated in this excerpt from a BASC blog written by Dr Conor O’Gorman and published this week:
It’s nothing new – the shooting industry has been aggressively attacking Chris for years (e.g. see here, here). The irony of it is, is that it’s actually more damaging to their own reputation than it is to Chris’s but they’re mostly too stupid to see it. Although I did watch Patrick Galbraith, editor of Shooting Times, trying to make this point at the recent Game Fair – sadly without much success.
UPDATE 29th August 2023: ‘No case to answer’ – Hampshire Police close ridiculous ‘Chris Packham sniffed a goshawk’ investigation (here)
Raptor Persecution UK 