Tag: moorland monitors

Guest Post | Gamebird Shooting in Sheffield & South Yorkshire

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“The sight and sound of a pheasant is almost ubiquitous in the fields around Sheffield and South Yorkshire. Any day out in the countryside will eventually involve the familiar coarse squawk as they dash out from the scrub. But why are they here and why do people care? There is growing unease about the presence of pheasants – and their associates, red-legged partridges – in the UK countryside. The prevalence of these birds is the end result of a deeply damaging and divisive shooting industry. Each year, more and more opponents are speaking out about the animal welfare issues and environmental impacts of this industry.” Guest Post by Adam Davies

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Grouse shooting over as moorland burning banned?

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An article in today’s Observer is titled ‘Grouse shoots scrapped as heather burning is banned on moors’. The headlines don’t tell the whole story of course: the ban is not wholesale, it applies to large areas of moorland in England but not Scotland (where heather burning is also commonplace), and landowners have not banned heather burning for good but have said that their tenants are ‘no longer allowed to burn heather routinely’. This, Charlie Moores writes, may not be the end of driven grouse shooting, but it’s certainly the begining of the end of it.

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New ‘protection’ for stoats?

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As of today, stoats here in the UK have gained a small measure of protection for the first time (Ireland gave stoats legal protection under their Wildlife Act 1976 / 2000). That should be good news for Britain’s stoats because they are killed in massive numbers by gamekeepers (no-one knows how many because no-one is required to keep a tally). But, as Charlie Moores writes, protection for any animal that the shooting industry wants rid of is rarely straightforward…

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Guest Post | Coronavirus – A Potential Cover for Wildlife Crime & Cruelty?

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‘The coronavirus pandemic has brought huge and necessary changes to our way of life. Public health is at the forefront of all our minds – and rightly so. But there will be consequences of our lockdown for many other species. Wildlife crime thrives out of the public gaze and has the potential to wreak untold suffering whilst we are all confined to our homes. In particular, wildlife on grouse shooting estates will have chillingly little protection this springtime – and the lockdown falling during this season could have even more deadly consequences.’ Guest post by Moorland Monitors.

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