Bang goes the 'harmful man' theory:

[DEREK CANNING LLB[HONS] 20]

Bang goes the 'harmful man' theory:

grouse moor owners are heroes not villains of conservation

Magnus Linklater

Columnist, The Times

Filed 20 Mar 06

©Magnus Linklater

This article, which was originally published in The Times

on 15th March 2006, is reproduced on Land-Care with

the kind permission of the author and the newspaper

 

CAN THERE BE any more electrifying sight on television than a snow leopard careering down a near-perpendicular Himalayan mountain in pursuit of a deer calf? The leopard gains, the calf stumbles. Seized by the hindquarters, it wrests itself free in a last, desperate bid then cartwheels over a cliff into a fast-flowing river. Does it survive? We may never know.

This is nature red in tooth and claw, as seen on Sir David Attenborough’s Planet Earth series. So gripped are we by the action that we may overlook the subtext: this is also nature under threat. The snow leopard is a rare creature that has never before been filmed like this. Hunted, trapped and pursued, its numbers have declined to fewer than 5,000. It is on the Red List of endangered species. As every conservation body worth its salt will assure you, where man intrudes, wild life is on the retreat.

It is a message that is applied not just to the Himalayas but to the hills and moorland of Britain. It bolsters the ethos and the coffers of impeccable organisations like the WWF, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and government-sponsored bodies such as English Nature and its Scottish and Welsh equivalents. Their running theme, rarely challenged in public, is that, where wild birds and animals are in decline, the hand of man, whether farmer, landowner, forester or sportsman, can be detected. Intensive farming, commercial exploitation and leisure pursuits such as hunting or shooting have driven some species to the point of extinction. Unless these human activities can be reined in, goes the story, the future for wildlife is bleak.

It is a deeply flawed message — at best a half-truth, at worst a deliberate distortion. Past masters at selling it are the RSPB, which last week issued yet another grim account of persecution, this time in the Peak District, which is to be the subject of an adjournment debate in Westminster Hall today.

Peak Malpractice, as the report is titled, claims that birds of prey, such as goshawk, hen harrier and peregrine, are in steep decline because of “illegal persecutionâ€. “The scale of decline is shocking and to bird-of-prey experts, there is no natural explanation,†an RSPB statement says. English Nature is blunter. It places the blame firmly at the door of grouse moor owners. “Areas where protected species have been affected coincide with driven grouse moors,†it says. “These include some of the most important conservation sites in Europe.â€

You will find any number of similar stories on the RSPB’s website. What you will not find are some very inconvenient facts, based not on propaganda but on science, which have been issued by the Game Conservancy Trust. Its own report, Nature’s Gain, presents a very different picture. It shows that on land that is managed for shooting, whether moorland, woods or pasture, wildlife is thriving. Over the past ten years, on grouse moors, for instance, golden plovers, curlew (pictured) and lapwing, which are under threat in so many parts of England and Wales, have multiplied by up to five times. The merlin, Britain’s smallest bird of prey, is twice as common on grouse moors as elsewhere. In the North Pennines area, which the RSPB complains about, curlew have increased by 18 times more than in the Berwyn Special Protection Area, which is managed as a bird reserve.

Pheasant shooting, widely condemned by conservationists, has done wonders for small birds such as robins, blackbirds and finches. The cultivation of woods and verges and the planting of game crops have resulted in wild bird numbers quadrupling in some areas. On one sample farm, in Leicestershire, where modern farming goes hand in hand with shooting, song birds, brown hares and harvest mice have shown dramatic improvement. The explanation is simple. In these places, nature is “managed †to encourage wildlife. Heather is burnt, which stimulates new growth. Vermin are controlled. Predators such as foxes and crows are kept down.

Contrast this with the RSPB’s own lamentable record. On Langholm Moor, where the society, allied with Scottish Natural Heritage, presided over an experiment to withdraw all gamekeeping, the number of birds, including hen harriers, grouse, waders, and all songbirds, has crashed. It is now, to all intents and purposes, a desert area. On Lake Vyrnwy, a reservoir area in Mid-Wales managed by the RSPB, curlew, plover and lapwing have declined to near-zero. Black grouse, which once thrived, are being wiped out, not just by foxes, but, embarrassingly for the RSPB, by the goshawks that they so much favour. Data for other species, like stonechats and short-eared owls, are simply not recorded — perhaps because the results are so bad.

I wanted to know how the RSPB had done on Geltsdale, a former grouse moor in Cumberland that it has managed since the 1970s. The only current report available, however, is sketchy. There seem to be no hen harriers, despite their being a “target†species; there are reasonable results for stonechats and grasshopper warblers; some golden plover were recorded. Most of the report, though, is taken up with a list of alleged incidents involving the persecution of birds of prey in the 1990s by neighbouring estates.

I have no doubt that there are examples of gamekeepers who break the law. But they do far more for conservation than most of their critics. Organisations such as the RSPB would be well advised to form partnerships with them, rather than targeting them as persecutors. Man may indeed be part of the problem in the world’s great wilderness areas but when it comes to the hills and moors of Britain, he is definitely part of the solution.

©Magnus Llinklater

Further reading recommended by Land-Care

Irvine, James (2005). Contrary to what the RSPB and English Nature would have us believe, curlews are doing fine on upland moors managed for grouse shooting.

See ENVIRONMENT Homepage, filed 24 Aug 05, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View

Linklater, Magnus (2004). Claws out on a silent moor: a heated battle rages over the birds of prey threatening to destroy Britain's grouse.

The Times 25th August 2004. Reproduced with kind permission on Land-Care

See ENVIRONMENT Homepage, filed 27 Aug 05, www.land-care.org.uk Click Here to View

[dogs-n-natives 1,182]

This problem will get worse before it gets better , in my opinion. As the organisations you speak of are largely made up of twitchers and anti's! They see any birds being killed as a bad thing and dont want to hear of the benefits.

If you kill predators you conserve game! Simple!.....

They dont even learn from their mistakes, when they do get some land as a 'sanctuary' it soon becomes an area of lifeless wasteground, as the predators soon finish off whatever unlucky prey species are left. But then they say is just 'natural'. Well for our wildlife to thrive in good numbers and in greater diversities, it needs to be carefully managed, thats been well proven,. As our country w as de-forested and robbed of its 'natural' environment hundreds of years ago.

Just my opinions, but groups such as the rspb really do need to take heed of the shooting world. The game conservancy does a lot of work to help show how keepering, not just in upland areas has help hundreds of species of insects, birds and animals thrive in good numbers.

[DEREK CANNING LLB[HONS] 20]

Is there any place in the UK that has not been influenced by man and if so the birds and animals that inhabit the UK need to be an extent manicured by man in what is a man made environment? For example, if there are too many foxes, badgers and hedgehogs then there will not be many lapwings, meadow pipits, skylarks and so on. If a moor is not keepered and burned with a view to helping red grouse, the heather becomes overgrown and woody and the moor can only support a fraction of the wildlife that a keepered moor can. I am no expert on the matter; the previously mentioned is only from my observations, however, a keeperd moor is a beautiful site with the patchwork of colours and diversity of wildlife. All the keepers that I have met do have genuine interests in all wildlife and do their best to reflect the diversity that makes our countryside green and pleasant. As in all works of life, you will get a small exception to the rule that is just human nature.

[shaun22 0]

I'm not having a dig, far from it but I think your preaching to the choir mate.

[DEREK CANNING LLB[HONS] 20]

I'm not having a dig, far from it but I think your preaching to the choir mate.

I am preaching to no one, I am just giving a personal view that people may or may not share, as it is a much-personalised viewpoint on my behalf.

[Guest little_lloyd]

Lets not forget the 'RSPB' controll Fox and Corvid populations on their reserves,, Not something the media or TV tells you, But it does happen, And right it should , For a healthy balanced population of Game and Wildlife

[fish 148]

Lets not forget the 'RSPB' controll Fox and corvid populations on their reserves,, Not something the media or TV tells you, But it does happen, And right it should , For a healthy balanced population of game and wildlife

i dont agee with some of your posts lioyd but on this one i do 100 per sent