Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Another illegally shot bird of prey...

Into the Eremozoic | 22.12.2012 00:09 | Animal Liberation | Ecology

It was recently confirmed that "Bowland Betty", a Hen Harrier, was illegally shot. The finger, yet again, points unmistakably to grouse shooting interests - and their friend in high places, Richard Benyon MP.....

(Original article at  http://eremozoic.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/the-untimely-demise-of-bowland-betty/)

Hen Harriers (Circus cyaneus) are amongst the rarest raptors in England, with only four pairs breeding successfully in 2011, all in the Forest of Bowland, Lancashire. Once widespread in the UK, habitat loss and persecution led to eradication of the species on mainland Britain by the start of the 20th Century, and it survived only on the Scottish Western Isles and Orkney. It slowly recolonised the mainland from these outposts during the second half of the 20th Century, returning to northern England by the 1960s.

With such a tenuous foothold in England, every individual bird matters – so recent news that a Hen Harrier was shot in North Yorkshire is disturbing. The female bird, known as “Bowland Betty”, had become something of a figurehead for the conservation of the species in northern England. Her untimely (and illegal) death by shotgun is symbolic of the intense pressure that such conservation efforts are under. There is estimated to be suitable habitat to support 320 breeding pairs in northern England, so the species would be expected to be much more successful – but for severe persecution.

Hen Harriers breed on grass and heather moors, where their prey consists mostly of rodents (especially voles), small birds (especially pipits), and nestlings. This can include the young of Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus), a subspecies of Grouse endemic to the British Isles. Red Grouse are a popular gamebird, and much moorland in northern England and southern Scotland is managed exclusively for the “sport” of shooting them. Gamekeepers who manage these moors have therefore long regarded the Hen Harrier as an enemy, and you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce what’s driving the persecution of the beleaguered raptor; a 2008 study by Natural England found that persecution pressures were much higher in moors managed for grouse shooting.

Grouse moors are managed to provide an expanse of Common Heather (Calluna vulgaris), the main food source for Red Grouse. Although regimes vary, the main components of such management tend to be burning to encourage regeneration of heather, eradication of predators (which legally includes corvids, foxes and mustelids), and drainage of wet ground. It is certainly true that management for grouse has maintained areas of heather moorland habitat that might otherwise have been lost to agriculture or intensive forestry, and that such management can benefit certain other bird species such as Curlew (Numenius arquata) and Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus). It’s also true that Red Grouse is itself a declining species which is, to some extent, being maintained by management for shooting. These facts, along with the general impetus to conserve heather moorland, sometimes lead to grouse shooting being cited as an example of good management for biodiversity.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I don’t subscribe to this opinion. The picture is admittedly complex, with both costs and benefits to wildlife from management for grouse, but the overall balance sheet for biodiversity is negative. It’s hard to see management for grouse as much more than a specialised form of livestock farming; the fact that the “livestock” is a wild endemic does not alter that basic impression. All management operations are geared towards maximising the density of Red Grouse, and effects on all other components of the ecosystem are subsidiary or incidental to that objective. Heather burning and drainage of moors tend to create a less diverse botanical community, with concomitant effects on other species, and burning can also exacerbate soil erosion if not very carefully controlled. The grouse themselves are encouraged to reach artificially high local densities so as to produce a “shootable surplus”, which tends to encourage the strongylosis parasite, and requiring grouse to be fed medicated meal to treat outbreaks. And of course there is the energetic elimination of predators – which the early demise of Bowland Betty reminds us, may not just include those which it is legal to kill.

There is a large amount of evidence of persecution of raptors across the UK, often with strong implications that shooting estates are implicated. Prosecutions for killing a protected bird of prey are rare, however, and there is a general impression that the law is failing to protect raptors from persecution by gamekeepers. It is becoming widely accepted by ecologists that the health of an ecosystem depends on the survival of its top predators, and so raptor persecution has significance well beyond the effects on the persecuted species itself – it is, in general, an attack on the biodiversity of the upland ecosystem.

Shooting on upland estates is a lucrative business, with participants typically paying £3,000 for a day’s shooting. This high value, and the cultural significance of grouse shooting to the British landed classes, justify the £52.5million which the estates say they spend per year on moorland management in England and Wales. With financial stakes such as these, Hen Harriers and other rare predators will never be welcome.

The shooting estates also have friends in high places; UK Prime Minister David Cameron is a shooter himself, but the key player in government here is Richard Benyon, the UK minister with responsibility for biodiversity and wildlife. Benyon, who is MP for Newbury (readers with long memories may recall his enthusiastic support for the Newbury Bypass) is rolling in inherited wealth, including a 20,000 acre estate in Berkshire, complete with Pheasant shoot, and an 8,000 acre grouse moor in the Scottish highlands. He embodies the traditional landed gentry, with attitudes towards wildlife to match….

Benyon’s tenure as wildlife minister has been peppered with controversial decisions that blatantly bespeak his shooting heritage. Recent broadsides from Benyon’s department include dropping a prosecution against the owner of Walshaw Moor shooting estate for draining and burning ecologically-rich blanket bog; proposing a plan to capture buzzards and blast their nests with shotguns in order to protect pheasant shooting (fortunately abandoned after a public outcry); and refusing a request from a parliamentary committee to extend a ban on possession of the outlawed pesticide Carbofuran, even though it is one of the main agents of illegal poisoning of raptors. It really does look as if – to use a metaphor Benyon would appreciate – the fox has been put in charge of the henhouse.

Shooting estates claim to be wise stewards of the countryside. In a sense this is true – they are very adept at manipulating an ecosystem to produce good numbers of their desired quarry species, at the expense of competitors and predators. While this blinkered and skewed attitude to ecology holds sway in large parts of the UK uplands, the outlook for the likes of “Bowland Betty” will remain bleak.

Into the Eremozoic
- Homepage: http://eremozoic.wordpress.com/

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

eagle/seagull

22.12.2012 02:31

Last month im watching crystal palace v brighton. At half time the palace mascot a real eagle comes on to the pitch the handler lets it go and it flys accross the pitch. This saturday was a wet windy day and seagulls had come to the smoke (london) the seagulls swooned down to attack the eagle i sat in my seat and thought the hanlers a ponce. Next home game i saw the ponce outside the ground fans were having photos with the eagle. I bowled up to the ponce and said that eagle should be free and in its own habitat not at a football ground i also said your a ponce living off the eagle. The ponce just walked off.. But i told him didnt i i told him...

selhurst park.


shooters need more sabbing

22.12.2012 09:20

for too long shooters have done what they like with the country and its wildlife. Lets give them a hard time next "glorious twelfth", sab on walsham moor anyone?

hel


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech