Scotroutes – I thought it was Roseanna Cunningham who had the brief?

Can everyone please email or write to Sturgeon and Cunningham to protest.

firstminister@gov.scot

CabSecECCLR@gov.scot

Fergus Ewing is the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy. Roseanna Cunningham covers Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. I suspect this falls mostly into the former, though there are obvious overlaps.

OK

Sturgeon and Cunningham ( who is environment) as well as Ewing emailed and Ewing I also tweeted tagging him

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-53582378

Now they should know the rough area which where poison has been laid, from the dogwalking route. Police need to get stuck in.

Nidderdale has been something of a hotspot for this kind of ****.

Until grouse shooting stops this appalling crime will continue. The Government need to ban it and offer some financial incentives to the landowners of the grouse moors for diversification. They could have clay pigeon shooting, holiday lets etc instead.Its not just raptors that suffer, its loads of different wildlife that get murdered by gamekeepers.
Also its unbelievable the cost of grouse shooting, some people pay £5K to £20K for the day.So the landowners are raking it in and obviously reluctant to see changes.

And that tosspot Ian Botham is now a Lord. He’s got a despicable record as an apologist for the worst of the shooting industry.

You forgot the biology

The scottish government is looking at controls on killing mountain hares. However rtather than putting controls in in time for this years mass killings they are asking the grouse moors to show restraint! Bunch of diddies!

Scottish Government fails to protect mountain hares as shooting season opens

You just know what will happen – a bigger slaughter than usual to pre empt the clampdown

And another one – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/25/grouse-moors-under-fire-after-golden-eagle-tag-hidden-in-scottish-river

Werrity report reaction due from the scottish government ” this Autumn”

Can anyone who has not done so email Sturgeon, Cunningham and Ewing. the more pressure the better chance of some proper action

The Scottish Gamekeepers Association said the RSPB had no evidence the person who threw the tag in the river was responsible for killing the eagle, or that lead wrapping had been used in this way before.

“Satellite tags have become heavily weaponised by political campaigners. They elicit high levels of publicity and a person finding one on their land would not want it around, given the scrutiny they would come under,” a spokesman said. “We hope [the police] find the truth of what has happened, for everyone’s sake.”

Of course. Whenever I find a mysterious transmitter, I carefully wrap it in lead sheeting from my rucksack and lob it into the nearest river.

Its laughable isn’t it

On the public information boards on the Glenlivet Estate (Crown Estates) they even attempt to justify the shooting of mountain hare as an attempt to control tick numbers – never mind the sheep that are roaming about.

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Clearly this eagle cut off its own tag, removed the antenna, wrapped the tag in lead sheeting, threw it in a river, and moved to France under an assumed name, all in an effort to frame the completely innocent local “sporting estate”.

Went for a ride over the Trough of Bowland in the wee hours this morning. Part of the Duchy estate. It was dark and I was overtaken by a 4×4 which proceeded of up one of the tracks near Abbeystead and up on to the moors. Seemed a little early to be going shooting and seeing as it was pitch dark just a wee bit odd. (they had access top the gates as well, so likely to be estate staff) Nefarious doings in the cover of darkness, maybe?

Bloody disgusting. Apparently they died in mysterious circumstances. Everyone knows it’s the estates with their gamekeepers and rent boys. Pricks.

Boils my piss.

We walked up those hills around the braan last year. Of all the hills in Scotland, they felt the most monoculture, multiple bird cages, skeleton of a Buzzard…
I’ve worked around that area with DofE, and had a few run ins with gamekeepers and dogs off leashes.
Funnily enough, they are managed by the same company some of the other ‘less welcoming’ estates were…

Clearly this eagle cut off its own tag, removed the antenna, wrapped the tag in lead sheeting, threw it in a river, and moved to France under an assumed name, all in an effort to frame the completely innocent local “sporting estate”.

TBF, eagles do have pretty easy access to lead roofing.

The Scottish Gamekeepers Association said the RSPB had no evidence the person who threw the tag in the river was responsible for killing the eagle, or that lead wrapping had been used in this way before.

I’m not entirely sure what point they’re trying to make here; what difference does it make whether lead sheeting has been used in this way before or not, no other GPS tags have been found anyway, but this one clearly shows deliberate intent to block its signal, so it’s obviously not the innocent loss of a tag through a bird dying of natural causes.

“Satellite tags have become heavily weaponised by political campaigners. They elicit high levels of publicity and a person finding one on their land would not want it around, given the scrutiny they would come under,” a spokesman said. “We hope [the police] find the truth of what has happened, for everyone’s sake.”

Implying that there are people prepared to slaughter raptors to get the tags, just to get at the businesses running the estates?
I hope the police find the truth too, but will they? Or if they do, will the estates just use the excuse that the police are part of a wider conspiracy to destroy their legitimate business.
Or if they don’t, then could that be a sign that the ‘old boys network’ in the police have been ‘persuaded’ by wealthy landowners that dropping the investigation might be to their ‘benefit’?
I’m not getting all Jivebunny here, there are still wealthy people in the Freemasons who are connected to senior police officers who are Freemasons, who might let it be known that a promotion might be aided if things get quietly dropped.

Went for a ride over the Trough of Bowland in the wee hours this morning. Part of the Duchy estate. It was dark and I was overtaken by a 4×4 which proceeded of up one of the tracks near Abbeystead and up on to the moors. Seemed a little early to be going shooting and seeing as it was pitch dark just a wee bit odd. (they had access top the gates as well, so likely to be estate staff) Nefarious doings in the cover of darkness, maybe?

Who knows? – there are plenty of relatively benign non-shoot related activities that might explain it. But that’s the problem with some estates either sanctioning or turning a blind eye to the persecution of raptors, while their industry body twists itself into knots to blame everybody else – it ruins the reputation of the whole lot, and everything they do looks suspicious.

The simple answer is to ban sports that involve killing and maiming for fun.

You’ve got to be a sick individual to enjoy that.

But that’s the problem with some estates either sanctioning or turning a blind eye to the persecution of raptors

Should read “many estates actively killing raptors”. the scale of this shown up by the satellite tag data and the results from Hen Harrier brood meddling show this. I am sure some estates do not do it but the scale of the killings and the absence of raptors over large parts of the country show clearly that it is not a few bad apples – its the majority of them

And that tosspot Ian Botham is now a Lord.

He is, but he’s also resident in Spain, and unless he changes his tax domicile he can’t sit in the HoL.

Good news from Scotland, predictably the industry is dismayed, and a Scottish Tory is up on her hind legs yapping about it!

The shooting industry said it was dismayed. It risked grouse moors closing down, with scores of job losses among game keepers and estate staff, and would damage other vulnerable rural businesses, including hotels, country sports shops and suppliers.

In a joint statement issued by five bodies representing landowners, gamekeepers and shooting enthusiasts, the industry said Scotland already had the UK’s strictest anti-persecution measures and incidents were declining.

Ministers had “paved the way for a very uncertain future for many rural people by announcing that it intends to introduce a licensing scheme for grouse moors which interferes with legitimate business activities and threatens to engulf the sector in a blizzard of red tape that is unprecedented and out of all proportion”, they said.

Liz Smith, environment spokeswoman for the Scottish Tories, said: “It is yet another SNP attack on rural Scotland which will have deeply damaging and long lasting consequences.”

Now we want the same thing across the rest of the U.K., stuff what the ‘industry’ wants!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/26/grouse-shooting-to-require-licence-in-scotland?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I can’t understand why the shooting industry is up in arms – after all, they don’t indulge in raptor persecution so have nothing to fear…