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| Moor Burning from the Derwent Valley - Peak District National Park. |
Dear
Ms Bradley
I
am a constituent of yours and I signed the e-petition on the
parliament website entitled Ban Driven Grouse
Shooting https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/125003.
That e-petition has passed 100,000 signatures and therefore is
expected to receive a debate in Westminster Hall some time later than
9 October. In our constituency of Staffordshire Moorlands 200
people have supported this petition (as of 18.08.16).
I
have written to you about this subject before, but at that time the
chance of a debate in Parliament was not on the cards, now it is so I
write to you again.
I
hope that when the debate occurs you might feel able to represent my
views in that debate. I want to see driven grouse shooting banned and
changes in the way our hills are managed. My reasons are as follows:
1.
The RSPB estimate that there England holds sufficient habitat for at
least 300 breeding pairs of Hen Harriers in England.
2.
In the 19th C, and then the twentieth century legislation
was implemented to protect wild birds from persecution.
3.
In spite of this there are still only a handful of Hen Harriers that
establish nests and attempt to breed in England (they have more
success on the Isle of Man where there are usually 25 – 30 pairs,
and on parts of Scotland and Ireland).
4.
The nests in England almost always fail to rear any young. How do we
know this? It is because, when they are found, the nests are watched
by dedicated birdwatchers who monitor their progress; and these
people often find that either that (a) females desert nest because
the males disappear, or (b) the eggs are removed, or damaged so that
they will not hatch. In the event of any nestlings surviving to
fledgling stage many are equipped with satellite tags that send
signals to organisations such as the RSPB or Natural England so they
can see their whereabouts. Many of these birds have disappeared in
such as way as to strongly suggest that they have been killed on
grouse moors; some are found, satellite intact, again on grouse
moors, sometimes in ways that prove they have been illegally killed.
5.
There is overwhelming evidence that these birds are killed as part
of the driven grouse shooting industry because:
(a)
There is a tradition of gamekeepers killing raptors such as Hen
Harriers, that has developed alongside the tradition of driven
grouse shooting. This is no secret as, up until the legislation
prevented it, gamekeepers were able to talk openly about what they
did. The Hen Harriers, and other wildlife (e.g. stoats, weasels,
buzzards, Peregrine Falcons, foxes etc.) are perceived by
gamekeepers to take young Red Grouse, thus making the shoot
economically unviable. There is no secret about that either. I has
been acknowledged by the grouse shooters many times, plus an ongoing
scientific study, The Langholm Moor Demonstration Project,
consistently demonstrates that breeding Hen Harriers on a shooting
estate means there are insufficient grouse to justify holding a
shoot.
(b)
When the tagged birds are found they are always found near driven
grouse shooting estates.
(c)
In areas where there is no tradition of driven grouse shooting there
the breeding population of Hen Harriers matches the amount of
available suitable habitat (e.g. NW Europe, Isle of Man). Over their
natural range Hen Harriers are not rare birds, only are they rare
where driven grouse shooting occurs, and that is only in the British
Isles.
(d)
As I'm sure you appreciate, as part of your constituency contains
habitat suitable for breeding Hen Harriers (e.g. the Roaches Estate)
finding evidence of raptor persecution in remote upland areas is not
easy, however occasionally gamekeepers do get prosecuted for their
crimes, provided there is sufficient evidence. No other
professionals ever get prosecuted for this crime. In addition to
this, birders who watch Hen Harrier nests sometimes see gamekeepers
involved in suspicious behaviour; indeed only a few weeks ago a man
was filmed in the Peak District (High Peak Estate) trying to lure a
male Hen Harrier to a plastic lure of a female so that the male
could be shot. Though a video of the incident was recorded it was
not of sufficient quality to be used by the police as evidence. The
National Trust were obviously convinced that something was very
wrong as they have now decided not to renew the tenancy for that
grouse shooting business. Incidently, while driven grouse shooting
exists in the Peak District we don't have much chance of Hen
Harriers nesting on nearby grouse moors because
breeding females that may settle would be unlikely to keep a mate because they
get lured away and killed.
6.
As I have mentioned above, Driven Grouse Shooting also depends on
killing lots of other wildlife that are predators upon young grouse.
Plus, some years, many Mountain Hares are slaughtered because they
are blamed for harbouring the ticks which carry a disease called
Louping Ill which in turn harms the grouse. Many wild animals have to
die so that a few people can indulge in a pretty exclusive hobby (it
costs £100s per day), that involves killing 1000s of another species
of bird a day, and that for only a few weeks of the year!
7.
Managing heather moors and blanket bogs by burning, draining and
track-making for driven grouse shoots has other effects which are
harmful to the environment. I have written about this to you before.
These practices: damage the peat, thus releasing stored carbon (a
greenhouse gas); the subsequent excess erosion causes silting of
moorland streams which harms biodiversity; reduced vegetation leads
to increases in runoff rate of precipitation potentially leading to
economically damaging flooding of nearby settlements; loss of peat
means less capacity for peat to hold rain and snow water which is a
potential source of water for moorland reservoirs (e.g. Derwent
Reservoirs in Peak District). All in all it seems to be a very
outdated means of habitat management.
Note;
this is not about an outright ban on legal shooting of wildlife or
banning shooting of Red Grouse by other means (i.e. “walked up”
grouse shooting) which don't involve intensive management of grouse
moors.
I
hope that when the date of the debate is determined you will be able
to attend the debate – would it be your intention to do so?
Do
you think you would be able to speak on that subject?
I
would be grateful for your response and the opportunity to brief you
on the subject if you are planning to attend the debate.
Yours
sincerely
Wendy
Birks
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