BBC link

So they are wanting to kill natural habitat predators for the sake of some f’in grouse!

I’m appalled.

Well they have the right people at Number 10 to try and get something like this through.. or will “Call me Dave” try to appeal to the common man by rebuffing it..

They’re allegedly killing lots of them illegally already.

For more depressing stupidity see this;

http://www.communicatescience.eu/2010/05/senseless-killing-of-birds-of-prey-must.html

Misguided Kerry farmers killing animals which could turn out to be a tourist attraction – given the amount of rural B&B’s in the area it’s madness

Killing birds of prey to protect game estates has always happened and is still happening illegally – as the article illustrates. Making a legal process that parallels that available to farmers seems a sensible one to at least open for discussion. Deploring it without exploring it is just a bit silly really.

So they are wanting to kill natural habitat predators for the sake of some f’in grouse!

They already do it for some f’in sheep too. Are you still appalled?

Instead of allowing it then why not making them protected and prosecute illegal killing. FFS once they are gone they are gone. Not like grouse or a sheep which can be replaced.

for the sake of some f’in grouse!

I don’t think they intend doing the grouse any favours.

More a case of giving a helping hand to Vivian Smith-Smythe-Smith, Simon Zinc-Trumpet-Harris, Gervaise Brook-Hamster, and Oliver St. John-Mollusc.

Here we go.

You’ve got to hand it to the scientific community. Everyone just seems to accept that conservation and preservation are the default values that need to be given primacy. If anyone stops to think about this, they might realise that those values are just as likely to be used to dislocate people from the landscape as landowners are.

Instead of allowing it then why not making them protected and prosecute illegal killing.

Erm…….they are and they do. It is evidently not working. People kill them for reasons so something else needs to be done.

FFS once they are gone they are gone. Not like grouse or a sheep which can be replaced.

Erm…….yes – same as any animal / plant etc. Hence why some sort of management process is being proposed.

How would you propose the ‘replacement’ of grouse? Or how would you explain your stance to someone whose living depended upon those grouse or sheep?

Or how would you explain your stance to someone whose living depended upon those grouse or sheep?

Surely raptors taking grouse increases the need for the services of people whose livelihood depends on producing grouse ?

while grouse and pheasant are throughly free ranging (thats what makes shooting them fun for the people who like shooting them) they are bread quite intensively in protected enclosures. Go into any strip of woodland around my house and there are pens with fricking hundreds of them in there.

The countryside has been shaped, managed and developed for centuries to nurture and favour the existence of game birds, they have the upper hand over the preditors as the landscape has been shaped and planted to create food, shelter and especially – somewhere to hide from raptors. With that being the case raptors’ diets consists of all sorts of stuff thats easier to catch – even though we have swarms of pheasant here – there can sometimes be 40 or 50 standing outside my front window – I’ve only seen raptors take pidgeons and rabbits.

They’re reared in such large numbers that raptors could eat them all year til they are sick and still there would be more than enough for Finton and Josh to take pot shots at.

No matter how many birds the raptors might take – more will end up plastered across the front bumpers of cars. Should we legislate for landowners having a license to cull motorists?

while grouse and pheasant are throughly free ranging (thats what makes shooting them fun for the people who like shooting them) they are bread quite intensively in protected enclosures. Go into any strip of woodland around my house and there are pens with fricking hundreds of them in there.

The countryside has been shaped, managed and developed for centuries to nurture and favour the existence of game birds, they have the upper hand over the preditors as the landscape has been shaped and planted to create food, shelter and especially – somewhere to hide from raptors. With that being the case raptors’ diets consists of all sorts of stuff thats easier to catch – even though we have swarms of pheasant here – there can sometimes be 40 or 50 standing outside my front window – I’ve only seen raptors take pidgeons and rabbits.

They’re reared in such large numbers that raptors could eat them all year til they are sick and still there would be more than enough for Finton and Josh to take pot shots at.

No matter how many bird the raptors might take – more will end up plastered across the front bumpers of cars. Should we legislate for landowners having a license to cull motorists?

What he said ^

Once they get into the habit of killing chicks then they pick off loads. One of the local estates suffered huge pheasant chick losses from a group of buzzards systematically picking them off. From the buzzard’s point of view once they’ve found an easy food source then they’re not going to go looking elsewhere. I’m not making a case for killing them btw, just passing on the reasons. However, if you accept that people kill animals that they consider as pests, be it rats, deer squirrels etc then raptor’s can’t really be excluded just be cause we think they look good.

While what maccruiskeen says may be true for lowland game birds pheasant etc, it isn’t true for grouse and grouse moors which usually rely on a wild population of birds.

No Justification at all for illegal persecution.

I think that a case could and should be made for licensed relocation of raptors from areas of high population density to areas of lower population density, based upon proven suppression of grouse breeding success.

interesting background here:

http://www.langholmproject.com/

The Langholm Moor Demonstration Project aims to demonstrate an effective means of resolving the raptor-grouse moor controversy by restoring grouse moor management to the Langholm Moor SPA/SSSI as a way of meeting the conservation objectives of the site. In particular we aim to :

demonstrate how to resolve conflicts between moorland management for raptors and red grouse
maintain the hen harrier population as viable component of the SPA
extend and improve the heather moorland habitat beyond its state in 2002
improve grouse production such that grouse shooting again becomes viable enough to support moorland management
This site would become a model for modern, sustainable grouse moor management…

Langholm shows clearly that raptors are no threat to grouse populations and indeed as is well known that a healthy population of predators means a healthy population of prey species.

No excuse at all for raptor persecution, I cannot believe someone suggested that as raptors are killed illegally then the law should be changed. This crime is being taken more seriously and landowners have lost their EU grants because of raptor persectution and some have gone to jail.

It should be prosecuted vigorously, there is no excuse for it, despite pro shooting propaganda raptor populations have no significant effect of game bird populations

Surely if they didnt kill the birds of prey, then the birds of prey would kill the grouse and they would have to bother getting people into kill the grouse.

sound much simpler to me

Langholm shows clearly that ………………

Science and conservation profesionals expect to dictate land usage.

The Langholm Moor trial is one of the few things to actually test this with a scientific basis, and as TJ said, has so far shown that birds of prey do not deplete grouse numbers on the moor. If you think that they should be allowed to persecute birds of prey in the name of game management, then were is the evidence that this is actually needed? Stories from gamekeepers are never the most reliable, and having the mentality of killing anything that isn’t a grouse or pheasant may have been acceptable in the past but definitely isn’t now.

Trailmonkey – try reading it.

what it shows is the two are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to manage a shooting estate in such a way as to improve both teh game bird population and that of raptors

I know you have a bee in your bonnet about conservation dictating land use but while it is true sometimes it is far from true all the time especially in Scotland

Or how would you explain your stance to someone whose living depended upon those grouse or sheep?

Get a proper job.

Trailmonkey – try reading it.

I got as far as reading the project details then saw who or rather what exactly was administrating the project – the usual cast of scientific and heritage management ‘experts’- and gathered all the information that I deemed neccesary

I know you have a bee in your bonnet about conservation dictating land use

What a patronising way of dismissing a serious and relevant( to the mtb community )issue. An issue btw that is starting to gain some weight of credibility in both academic and heritage management circles.

especially in Scotland

Where i would hope there is a less deferential approach to the automatic acceptance of middle class, profesional values.

While what maccruiskeen says may be true for lowland game birds pheasant etc, it isn’t true for grouse and grouse moors which usually rely on a wild population of birds.

Grouse moors themselves (as the name suggests) are a managed habitat for grouse – patches of dense cover for nesting and young, with cleared patches of ground for fresh growth and food. If they were left to nature they’d be a completely different habitat. And if grouse chicks aren’t reared in captivity then those ones up an the hill near me must be hanging out in big net enclosures for a laugh 🙂

So without reading the langholm project stuff you dismiss it out of hand.

You do have a bee in your bonnet about this and see it everywhere – even when as in the case of the langholm project it simply is not there.

Don’t be so closed minded.

So without reading the langholm project stuff you dismiss it out of ahand.

I told you, i read as much as i needed to know about it’s aims and who was running the project. More than enough info.

Science is the new landowner. Keep tugging your forelock.

Trailmonkey – if you actually had read it and understood you would realise that you are wrong. That is the opposite of what langholm is about and what it shows.

Trailmonkey – if you actually had read it and understood you would realise that you are wrong. That is the opposite of what langholm is about and what it shows.

I’m not wrong at all. The landscape itself with its SSSI deisgnation and the project as a whole is riddled with the assumed primacy of scientific values.

You really don’t get this AHD thing do you ? Greater intellectual minds than mine tried to open your eyes on the Cairngorms thread but they couldn’t get through to you either.

Trailmonkey – I do understand this point. What I cannot get thru to you is it does not apply in every case and certainly does not at langholm. It is not

as a whole is riddled with the assumed primacy of scientific values.

Its a sporting estate managed for grouse shooting. Input from organisations such as the RSPB showed that without compromising its utility as a sporting estate biodiversity and especially raptor populations could be increased while actually having no detrimental effect on the shooting.

Its not one dimensional as yo seem to think. I

Its an SSSI !!

So? its a sporting estate of managed grouse moor managed for shooting.

How you can state it is an example of your hypothesis when yo have not read up on what happened is just ludicrous.

Hang on, you claim to understand the argument then say….

So?

… when its pointed out that its an SSSI ❓

And I have read it. I told you so. I know exactly what the place is, what the aims of the project are and who is behind it. More than enough info.

TBH anyone who understands this stuff need look no further than the first page of the project aims.

Thats right – you don’t understand at all.

Its an SSSI, its also a sporting estate, its managed for shooting.

You see your hypothesis needs conservation to be the only value assigned to the land. However here as in many other places in Scotland it is not. Conservation and land usage for recreation and profit are not mutually exclusive. Its actually much finer nuanced and with far more shades of gray that you realise.

so you have not read up on the langhom project at all but you know you are right about it despite actully completely missing the key point

Its all bollocks, fair enough control predators if they’re killing food stocks such as sheep etc, but Grouse!?

Killing a rare bird of prey to prevent it from killing a bird that is solely reared to be shot and killed by a middle class toff is beyond belief.

OK so whose values are being given primacy ?

We expect to employ a team of five game keepers to undertake this work, and they will operate alongside shepherds and ecologists.

Ecological monitoring

Progress will be assessed by a team of ecologists

Who is in charge ?

Susan Davies (Chairman) Scottish Natural Heritage
Des Thompson (Secretary) Scottish Natural Heritage
Mark Oddy Buccleuch Estates
Teresa Dent Game& Wildlife Conservation Trust
Duncan Orr-Ewing Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Liz Newton Natural England

What is the landscape ?

Langholm Moor SPA/SSSI

AHD in action. Point proven without question.

Trailmonkey – open your mind and your eyes. Really it is not what you think at all.

still – there are none so blind as those who do not want to see.

Its a sporting estate managed for shooting. That is its primary usuage. The conservation comes secondary to that. What you list there is the maagement of the conservation work – not the management of the estate

You just see your favourite bogeyman everywhere – even when it is not present at all.

What are you talking about ? It’s the Langholm Project that we’re debating here.

As in the link

http://www.langholmproject.com/

Thats right – management of a shooting estate for grouse shooting.

One of the aims is to make it viable again for shooting.

* improve grouse production such that grouse shooting again becomes viable enough to support moorland management

This site would become a model for modern, sustainable grouse moor management. The duration of the project is up to ten years, subject to review every three years.

You see – your basic premise is wrong. Its not about conservation having primacy over the land usage One of the main aims is to produce enough grouse so that there is good shooting thus money is generated and it is in the landowners interest to manage the land in this way so they can profit from the shooting.

Teh whole premise of this project is to show that conservation and shooting are ot mutually exclusive but are mutually beneficial

The Langholm Moor Demonstration Project aims to demonstrate an effective means of resolving the raptor-grouse moor controversy by restoring grouse moor management to the Langholm Moor SPA/SSSI as a way of meeting the conservation objectives of the site

A) Its an SSSI, which is going to determine what can and can’t be done on the site – who decides this designation ?
B) The wording is quite clear. This project is merely a conduit for meeting conservation objectives. Whose objectives ?

Enough. I’m off to ride my bike through an apparently ‘ Internationally important’ SSSI on Dartmoor. I’m sure people on the international level will be outraged.

Hen harriers are probably the most persecuted protected birds in the UK. Their numbers and range are severely limited by persistent persecution of adults, chicks and eggs. Before Langholm we in the RSPB were able to pooh pooh the idea that hen harriers affected grouse bags, after Langholm there was no doubt that they could.

The Langholm project was jointly funded by the RSPB with others and the essence of the study was to protect hen harriers (and other raptors) strictly on the site, see whether their numbers built up and then see whether they affected the numbers of red grouse available for shooting in the autumn.

Hen harrier numbers increased dramatically through the project and reached 20 females just after the project ended. Hen harriers eat a range of prey species, including voles, pipits and larks but also lots of red grouse, particularly chicks. And those hen harriers cut a swathe through the stock of red grouse available to be shot from the ‘Glorious Twelth’. Autumn grouse numbers were so reduced that commercial driven grouse shooting became unviable on this site. The harriers were eating the shootable surplus of grouse on which grouse shooting depends.

So, following Langholm there weren’t many grouse moor managers who felt less keen on killing hen harriers, despite the illegality of this, and probably quite a lot more who were even more disposed to do so.

Following Langholm, work was carried out on seeing whether artificial feeding of hen harriers at the nest would reduce their depredation of grouse chicks – the results looked very promising to us but certainly didn’t inspire grouse moor managers. And then followed a period of stalemate.

Now there is a new Langholm project where a group of organisations are working towards trying to find a solution again. Will we succeed? – who knows, but the folk on the ground are working well together as I saw yesterday.

The new project aims to return viable driven grouse shooting to the moor – with a few hen harriers knocking around too! Do visit the project website, read the keeper’s diary and see what we are all up to!

On leaving Langholm I felt encouraged. The guys on the ground are doing a great job – it may still be the case that Langholm is the place which provides a resolution to these conflicts. I hope it does.

Mark avery, former RSPB Chairman

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/blogs/markavery/archive/2010/07/29/langholm.aspx

I’ll leave it for everyone to decide whether to believe him.

The new project aims to return viable driven grouse shooting to the moor

Absolutly key. A grouse moor habitat will only exist if maintained. there needs to be a financial incentive for the land to be maintained as a grouse moor.

It can be done more sympathetically however and the aims of conservation and of utility are not mutually exclusive