In August 2019 Charlie Moores joined an event in Bradford city centre organised by Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors and the League Against Cruel Sports. The event was designed to put pressure on Yorkshire Water, one of the county’s largest landowners, to not renew – or to ‘pull the plug’ on grouse shooting licences on its properties. To quote Ban Bloodsports’ website, “Yorkshire Water leases 11 sections of moorland across the county for grouse shooting. The practice is causing widespread damage to wildlife and the environment on the utility company’s land.”

Dr Mark Avery is a conservationist, author, founding director of WildJustice, and a contributor to the People’s Manifesto for Wildlife as the Minister for Upland Ecology. Charlie Moores spoke with Mark in Buxton (on the edge of the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire) for the podcast series ‘The People’s Manifesto for Wildlife – Revisited’ the day before Hen Harrier Day 2019. He asked Mark whether in the twelve months since the publication of the Manifesto there had there been much change in how our uplands are managed or protected, and whether he still stood by his assertion that the UK’s National Parks should be downgraded.

Ban Bloodsports on Yorkshire’s Moors say on their website at stoptheshoot.com that their mission is “to end grouse shooting on Yorkshire’s moors, to free the way for these spaces to be managed in a way where their full potential can be reached. Through solid research, pro-active educational initiatives, investigations and legal advocacy. By educating the public and policy-makers about wildlife and the environment, we motivate them to support upland conservation.”
In April 2019 Charlie Moores met with Luke Steele, spokesperson for Ban Bloodsports, to find out just how the group intends to achieve their aims. He begins though by asking, ‘Who is Luke Steele anyway’?

Grouse moors – upland areas intensively managed for driven grouse shooting – cover a huge area of Scotland. Regularly burnt to ensure the different heights of heather, devoid of anything considered a threat to grouse, dotted with medicated grit trays for grouse, and scarred with permanent tracks to save shooters having to walk up to thousands of shooting butts to kill grouse, this form of moorland management perhaps appears to be ancient and in harmony with the uplands but in fact originated only in Victorian times, developing alongside the introduction of breech-loading shotguns and the expansion of railway networks which made once remote moors increasingly accessible. A newly launched coalition, Revive, is questioning whether grouse moors are the best way to utilise up to 20% of Scotland’s land. Made up of conservation, societal, and environmental organisations based in Scotland, Revive has come together to say that reform of these precious areas “is not only needed but urgently needed“. Charlie Moores met with Revive campaign manager Max Wiszniewski to find out more

Wildlife persecution is a regrettable fact of life in parts of the countryside, particularly those areas managed for shooting. Much of it takes place just out of sight, but we can help tackle it if we know where to look and what to look out for.
In this podcast, recorded in May 2018, Charlie Moores talks with OneKind Scotland’s Director Harry Huyton as they walk through the Pentland Hills, a large Regional Park close to Edinburgh. They discuss Fred (a young Golden Eagle that ‘disappeared’ earlier this year in highly suspicious circumstances in the Pentlands), Harry’s vision of what this area really should offer its visitors, and Charlie reflects on what he saw here based on his experiences looking for wildlife in National and Regional Parks around the world.

Wildlife persecution is a regrettable fact of life in parts of the countryside, particularly those areas managed for shooting. Much of it takes place just out of sight, but we can help tackle it if we know where to look and what to look out for.
In this podcast, recorded in southern Scotland in May 2018, Charlie Moores discusses stink pits, marked areas surrounded by snares and used on many grouse moors and pheasant shoots to attract foxes and other predators to their deaths, with Harry Huyton (then working with OneKind) and a wildlife investigator from the League Against Cruel Sports.

Wildlife persecution is a regrettable fact of life in parts of the countryside, particularly those areas managed for shooting. Much of it takes place just out of sight, but we can help tackle it if we know where to look and what to look out for.
In this podcast, recorded in Scotland in May 2018, Charlie Moores and a wildlife investigator discuss crow cage traps, used on many grouse moors to legally catch crows – arguably amongst the most intelligent birds on the planet – and illegally to catch birds of prey like Buzzards.