Open letter #1 An open letter to my local MP in support of a ban on Driven Grouse Shooting.

I am writing to express my support for the campaign to criminalise the driven shooting of Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotius), and in support of the E-petition to ban it, started by Dr Mark Avery, which has received over 18,500 signatures at time of writing.  The campaign brings together grassroots conservation campaigners and seeks to address the tragic and unacceptable decline and potential extinction of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) as an English breeding bird.  It is my belief that a full ban on driven grouse shooting- where grouse are flushed from the heather by beaters onto the waiting guns-is the only way we can stop the criminal elements in this industry, who have proved themselves pathologically incapable of leaving magnificent birds of prey alone. The Hen Harrier, despite a range of efforts to save it, has now been reduced to a few breeding pairs in England and Wales.  After several decades, co-operation between Grouse shooting enterprises and government conservation agencies and NGOs has been a failure, and the English Hen Harrier population has continued its catastrophic downward trajectory.  If grouse shooting itself were criminalised, the profit in killing Hen Harriers would be wiped out overnight. It is already illegal to kill Hen Harriers, but gamekeepers and their landed masters continue to flout the law, as enforcement is minimal and the vast uplands hard to police, especially on wildlife crime budgets reduced by the Conservative party.  It is easy to discretely destroy a nest, or place bait or a trap, or shoot these trusting birds, as they are highly reluctant to abandon their nests and young.  It is far harder to conceal a party of guns and a band of hired beaters, and harder still to market a criminal shoot.  I am sure the League Against Cruel Sports or similar organisations would be able to support the law enforcement agencies, as they do in the case of Fox hunting, which has mercifully been criminalised, ensuring prosecutions where grouse are deliberately chased from cover onto the waiting guns.

The pro-shooting lobby claim that a ban on driven grouse shooting would damage rural economies, and grossly inflated figures tend to be trotted out by bodies such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Countryside Alliance, figure which typically represent the economic value of shooting as a whole, and not that of driven grouse shooting exclusively. It seems unlikely that driven shooting is of great benefit to the rural economy. It is seldom profitable and relies heavily on public subsidy, which surely undermines the Conservative values of enterprise and market freedom which are so often espoused by the clients, landowners and the current government of which you are a part.   Furthermore, shooting sees large swathes of access land closed to the public during the summer school holidays, at the height of the tourist season, and when the purple moorland is in full bloom and at its most beautiful. This cannot benefit areas like the Forest of Bowland and the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, where business relies so heavily on tourism. A restored Hen Harrier population, with watch points run by organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB, and by local entrepreneurs however, could make a substantial economic contribution, more than replacing any losses caused by the banning of driven grouse shooting, and would not represent a drain on public funds.

Grouse shooting has other damaging impacts on the uplands, as heather burns, designed to artificially create habitat and food sources for unnaturally high numbers of grouse, has an appreciable impact on hydrology and may increase the risk of flooding. Too high a frequency of burns can also damage the peaty upland soils and peat bogs, vital carbon sinks in the fight against climate change, and can damage floristic diversity in these scarce, and distinctly British habitats.

The Hen Harrier is an inspiring sight whether in summer in the uplands or in the lowlands during the winter, as it ghosts over the reed beds, and I hope one day to be able to witness it and not see the conversation with any other witnesses turn to persecution.  It would be a tragedy if it were lost so that frustrated city boys and foreign oligarchs with guns can blast barely flightworthy juvenile grouse out of the sky on the ‘Glorious’ Twelfth.  Only three Hen Harrier nests successfully fledged young in 2014, and in 2012 there were no successful nests.  Even the most optimistic estimates place the English breeding Hen Harrier population at around 12 pairs, while published estimates for the potential population, given the existing habitat, range between 40 and 200 pairs.  It is clear that action is needed now, and that the government should heed the public call for a ban on driven shooting during this parliament,  before the Hen Harrier is gone, and it is too late. 


The Epetition is available here:  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/65627