Grouse Moor Management (1 Viewer)

[Stewart J]

This report makes interesting reading https://raptorpersecutionscotland.w...sque-mis-management-of-scottish-grouse-moors/

 

[teddybard]

As with most news reporting there is little chance
of letting the facts get in the way of the authors slant on life.

 

[The Wino]

Comissioned by the league against cruel sports to come to their pre-ordered conclusions

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[34127]

Comissioned by the league against cruel sports to come to their pre-ordered conclusions

Totally agree.
Any investigation that has been commissioned by an organisation with an interest in the outcome can not be a fair unbiased factual account.

 

[bubble63]

This report makes interesting reading https://raptorpersecutionscotland.w...sque-mis-management-of-scottish-grouse-moors/

Why does it make interesting reading, it's not independent is it?

Having spent time reading /watching items on this before, every side makes a convincing case

Look at the https , biased?

 

[DBK]

I have no sympathies with the LACS having shot birds in my youth and still fishing occasionally. However, birds of prey have been and are still being shot on sporting estates.

A good example was the goshawk, which started to make a comeback in the north east. As I remember it the bird did well around Kielder but never got much further as that brought it into close proximity with grouse shooters.

But there are two sides to any argument and predetator control is necessary at times. Ask the RSPB, well you can try but you won't get a straight answer. "Habitat management" they call it and it involves shooting and trapping animals like foxes on some of their reserves. They need to do it but the subject is just too sensitive for it to be admitted.

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[teddybard]

THE INCREASE OF BIRDS OF PREY.
0

BOTH from Yorkshire and Lancashire eagles have been reported as seen on the moors this summer. The latest news of the birds comes from the Clitheroe Fells, in Lancashire, where a pair of eagles were seen feeding upon a lamb. These were probably young birds of last year, which may have been returning to their original home, or to set up homes as near to it as the old birds would permit. But for several years it has been anticipated that the increase in the numbers of these birds on all the great deer forests of Scotland, where they are now almost universally protected, would probably cause some of the young to make the attempt to extend their nesting range southwards. In that case the natural strongholds which they might be expected to reoccupy would be the cliffs of the Lake Mountains, where they built as lately as the end of the eighteenth century, and the mass of the Pennines, in Westmoreland and North Yorkshire. The name of Arnscliffe, or Eagle's Cliff, as far south as Wharfedale seems to show that the birds once frequented that fine crag on the West Riding Moorlands. In spite of game preservation, never so keenly carried on as now, there is a very general increase in the number of our birds of prey, from the golden eagle to the smallest bird which ever kills a mammal, the red-backed shrike, the destroyer of young field- mice and infant voles. It cannot be doubted that this increase is due to a twofold cause. The first is the extension of the Acts for the protection of birds to Scotland, and the greater uniformity secured in their working, since the schedules and close times were made practically uniform in each of the two sections into which Scotland was divided for the purpose of furthering the working of the Acts. The second is the interest taken in preserving the larger raptores and all the owls by landed proprietors, and in many cases by the occupiers and the general public.

The birds which have benefited most by the Acts are the ospreys. Their nesting places, which have increased in the forests, though of the loch eyries we believe only three are now tenanted, are practically safe in the breeding season, while fewer are reported as shot every year on their way southwards in the autumn or northwards in the spring. Public opinion is entirely against the killer of these birds, who, if he does shoot one, is rather in the position of the slayer of the albatross, or of a cock-pheasant in August. A whole family of ospreys, two old and two young, might have been seen fishing for three weeks on one of the Southern estuaries last autumn, and were left unmolested, partly, no doubt, because a local by-law had postponed wild-fowl shooting till September 1st.

You can prove anything with a report this load of garbage came from the Guardian
dated 1903

 

[Stewart J]

I have been involved (voluntarily) for many years with Hen Harrier protection here in the Northumbrian uplands and have first hand experience of the illegal destruction of our birds of prey.

I have no links with the LACS but this report is well researched and well balanced backed up by many independent scientific studies.

There are many points of interest in it from moor management and the environmental damage being caused, "large subsidies" paid for by us basically to increase their profits, I could go on but it all in the report.

 

[mariner]

Some predators and other animals need to be culled, mainly due to the fact that this country has no large predators anymore.
In other words man has upset the fine balance that nature needs, to work efficiently.
The artificial management of game birds will always lead to an increase in natural predators, it's down to supply and demand.
The problems originally stem from the clearance and now the continued burning to keep the vegetation down for the shooters.
The Grouse moors are unatural and will always create problems. The whole area is completely out of balance with nature.
IMO a decision has to be made eventualy, by some one, that either the area is considered industrial agriculture, which it is now, or that it should be allowed to return to it's natural state.

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[teddybard]

Nature does tend to balance it's self when left alone
as we can now see in some parts of the country where for instance the re establishment of the
Pine Marten has started to control the Grey Squirrel
population.
Neither Grouse farmed Moors nor Re introduced species
even if natural to an area
will go without the problems associated with human nature

 

[DBK]

Some predators and other animals need to be culled, mainly due to the fact that this country has no large predators anymore.
In other words man has upset the fine balance that nature needs, to work efficiently.
The artificial management of game birds will always lead to an increase in natural predators, it's down to supply and demand.
The problems originally stem from the clearance and now the continued burning to keep the vegetation down for the shooters.
The Grouse moors are unatural and will always create problems. The whole area is completely out of balance with nature.
IMO a decision has to be made eventualy, by some one, that either the area is considered industrial agriculture, which it is now, or that it should be allowed to return to it's natural state.

Returning to its natural state will be very difficult. If they stopped heather burning the hills would be covered in bracken which isn't how they were.

Planting with native trees might be possible but the soil may now be too acid now I suspect, if there is even enough depth of soil left.

Heather burning in Scotland is of course exactly what the Ptarmigan wants.

I blame the invention of the axe, because our ancestors used them to chop down all the trees.

It isn't a simple problem.

 

[mariner]

Returning to its natural state will be very difficult. If they stopped heather burning the hills would be covered in bracken which isn't how they were.

Planting with native trees might be possible but the soil may now be too acid now I suspect, if there is even enough depth of soil left.

Heather burning in Scotland is of course exactly what the Ptarmigan wants.

I blame the invention of the axe, because our ancestors used them to chop down all the trees.

It isn't a simple problem.

Nature has amazing powers of self regeneration and human intervention could possibly speed this up. This natural regeneration would probably take hundreds of years, so not quick enough for current needs.
Many Grouse moors are part of National Parks and it was the clearance for intensive Sheep farming that created the problem. Constant over grazing resulted in what we have now.
The point is, do we designate these areas as Industrial Agriculture, such as shooting, or do we allow it to become a natural untouched enviroment left to recover?
If you want the former, then proper structured control of predators has to be used.
If you want the latter, the land owners would need to be compensated for loss of income.
Personnaly I think we should leave things as they are, but predators should be culled by properly licensed, regulated operatives and not on the whim of some Gamekeeper.

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[DBK]

Nature has amazing powers of self regeneration and human intervention could possibly speed this up. This natural regeneration would probably take hundreds of years, so not quick enough for current needs.
Many Grouse moors are part of National Parks and it was the clearance for intensive Sheep farming that created the problem. Constant over grazing resulted in what we have now.
The point is, do we designate these areas as Industrial Agriculture, such as shooting, or do we allow it to become a natural untouched enviroment left to recover?
If you want the former, then proper structured control of predators has to be used.
If you want the latter, the land owners would need to be compensated for loss of income.
Personnaly I think we should leave things as they are, but predators should be culled by properly licensed, regulated operatives and not on the whim of some Gamekeeper.

Can't disagree with any that.