Public misled by ill-informed grouse shooting claims: Our letter to The Guardian

The assertion that moorlands are being, or have been, drained for grouse shooting purposes is misleading (Labour calls for review of grouse shooting on eve of ‘glorious 12th’, August 12).

Moorland is not, and has not been, actively drained for over 30 years in the UK. When some moorlands were drained from the 1930s to the 1980s, it was almost all done under government subsidy for improved grazing for sheep production, or tree planting, not shooting.

In the past 10 years, thousands of hectares of moor, misguidedly drained under these agricultural schemes, have been re-wetted by and with the help of grouse moor managers. This moorland restoration also starts to correct damage to peat caused by pollution from the Industrial Revolution.

GWCT research shows that moorland managed for grouse supports nationally important populations of upland waders such a curlew, golden plover and lapwing, which are more than three times as likely to raise a chick on these areas than on an area not managed for grouse.

Adam Smith

GWCT Director Policy Scotland

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Comments

Grouse Moors

at 11:57 on 14/08/2019 by alan seward

Hi I totally agree with Stephen Loquens. This is not necessary a class or city v rural issue. There is a large minority of activists who want to abolish all field sports as a matter of principle . Social Media enables them to work together to attack us and organise vocal and misguided false information to influence the public. basically they do not like to see animals killed , full stop , and that includes the food chain! They are also normally from the left of the political spectrum! We must not ignore this and remove all areas where we can be accused of bad practice.

Grouse shooting and predator control

at 17:28 on 13/08/2019 by Michael T Parker

I saw the recent discussion on Channel 4 and if records of all predator, pest control killings are not readily available they should be . We should be very conscious that the centuries old "Countryman's" ruthless attitude to non game creatures is likely to flourish if not checked. It's a long time ago but my introduction to walking the hedges of my personally, much respected Uncle and upstanding community member's rough shoot, included instant shooting of wandering cats. Magpies were shot on any nest he found. All vermin he said and you could not think of challenging him.

GLORIOUS 12TH

at 17:01 on 13/08/2019 by Robert Griffiths

It is a good thing to dissemble the inaccuracies in the cases made against country sports, for the education of the uninformed, but we should be under no illusions that the cases are made in the first place for reasons of class prejudice.

Moor management

at 16:43 on 13/08/2019 by Len Cragg

These factually incorrect assertations have appeared in all manner of press publications. Will all these publications now print the real story to correct the spurious comments made by some writers and others. These is no need to reply to me, just make sure all who printed are made to correct their spurious comments.

Grouse moors/game rearing

at 16:16 on 13/08/2019 by Stephen Loquens

Hi, I have been shooting from the age of nine, I am now seventy. I have seen great changes in the shooting world. I am however concerned that unless we make our voice clearly and logically heard and certainly backed up by scientific evidence; then successive anti shooting bodies will start to pick off at the fringes. We have already seen this ref. Chris Packham, others will jump on the band wagon and I fear that the shooting of wild game will be severely curtailed. This will then be followed by the banning of rearing game, pheasants/partridge for the purpose of shooting. Please keep up the pressure.

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