Simon Lester, former head gamekeeper at Langholm Moor, reports on the ‘is there a future for grouse-shooting’ Q&A at the Bird Fair at Rutland Water, Leicestershire, on Friday 19 August 2016.
What a difference a week makes. Last Friday, on the Glorious Twelfth, I was fortunate enough to be standing in a grouse butt; this Friday, I was fortunate enough to be sitting in front of a 500-strong audience at the Bird Fair, ‘the birders’ Glastonbury’, to take part in a question and answer session with Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, Stuart Housden, Director of RSPB Scotland, and Dr Mark Avery, who is championing the banning of driven grouse shooting.
I say fortunate because I care deeply, not just about grouse shooting in particular, but the huge benefits it brings.
Having worked at Langholm moor in Dumfriesshire for the past eight years, I know first hand what happens when grouse moor management ceases—it’s all very well documented and the 24-year roller coaster ride that is the predator/prey conflict continues.
So, what did I take from the experience of defending and extolling the advantages of grouse shooting and sustainable moorland management to a polite, but partisan, audience:
1. Never underestimate your adversaries. Like him or loathe him, Mark Avery has achieved his aim of bringing driven grouse shooting into the public and political domain, not least through his anti-driven grouse shooting e-petition, which, now it’s been signed by more than 100,000 people (116,000 and counting), means it may well be debated in parliament.
2. Sadly, this is not just a wildlife/people conflict, it is party political, too, as, during the discussion, several references were made about bringing down Tories, ‘men in tweed’ and the rich.
3. The Green Party’s Natalie Bennett has only visited two grouse moors, we must get more normal people and politicians on to the moors and associated areas—in summer, to show them the wealth of bird life and in winter to illustrate how much income is generated in the locality.
A lady from the audience, who stated she was not a supporter of hunting or shooting, told everyone that the study of curlew that she was involved in ended in all the nests being predated and that she was amazed at the amount of waders she encountered when she visited a driven grouse moor.
She also added that nothing would have stopped last year’s devastating flooding at Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire—which Miss Bennett has repeatedly blamed on grouse moor management—as the rain was unprecedented.
4. We need to decide the definition of sustainability and do some economic comparisons. If we want to maintain the rich biodiversity we have at the moment, I don’t think eco tourism will generate enough income to fund upland management.
Many big claims have been made about lots of money being made from eco tourism. However, although there were lots of hen harriers for birdwatchers to observe at Langholm, there wasn’t much of a drip down effect—just ask the locals.
5. RSPB Scotland’s Stuart Housden supports a less intensive, licensed approach to grouse shooting, but I don’t think he truly understands how time-consuming and skilful—thus expensive—predator control is, and the constant pressure many species are under from predation.
6. Who is going to pay for upland management? With Brexit on its way, I would have thought that private landowners’ financial commitment would be even more important. In the past, money from the EU has gone to Defra to be spent on farming subsidy and conservation, now it will have to come from our coffers, where a lot more demands will be made on it and politicians will have to make some tricky decisions.
It’s a question I would have liked to put to Natalie Bennett, with NHS, housing, education, social services and so on, all knocking at the door for funding.
7. We need to be more pro active with our case and use the science we have in a more user friendly way. There is lots of work going on with peatland restoration, understanding carbon capture and storage and the hydrology of moorland, which we need to explain in a pithy and understandable way.
8. Most people are passionate about something and I like passionate people, as I am one. At the Bird Fair, the audience was passionate about birds and nature, in much the same way that the audience at the Game Fair is.
Although many sympathised with Dr Avery’s views, they were very polite and showed no signs of hostility. Talking to people face to face is so much better than slinging insults about on social media. My only advice is, be careful what you wish for if you care about nature.
9. I believe there is a workable solution to this conflict in the shape of diversionary feeding, brood management and the licensed removal of common raptors, if they’re proven to be a problem to the sustainability of a particular moor. In other words, by dangling the carrot before using the stick—if these compromises were forthcoming and we abused them, then driven grouse shooting would deserve to be banned.
10. We need to deliver more—and increase the range of—hen harriers. The question and answer session was summed up well by the chair, Dr Rob Lambert from the University of Nottingham, who has studied conflict resolution, and who said that this conflict over moorland management would not be solved by enforcement or science alone.
11. Do not preach to the converted—whoops!
Get your FREE hen harrier & grouse shooting guide from the GWCT
Download your essential FREE guide which addresses the key issues surrounding hen harriers and driven grouse shooting.
What's inside your FRE guide
✓ essential hen harrier facts
✓ details of the hen harrier recovery plan
✓ summary of the issues and arguments surrounding a proposed ban on driven grouse shooting
✓ key figures and scientific findings