To not understand the 'Glorious Twelfth?

[Dolcelatte]

I have a lot of grouse in my garden and they are beautiful. I just don't understand how people can get pleasure from shooting them. I am not vegetarian or anything and I do eat game, so perhaps I am being hypocritical; but I can't see anything glorious about killing for sport.

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/article4172314.ece

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/charlesclover/article1444695.ece

Okay fine, so you find an article implying that shooting is bad, here are 2 from the times saying its good.
Like it or not, shooting makes a very big contribution to conservation in this country and to the rural economy. I am as against wildlife crime as anyone else but even if a couple of rogue gamekeepers were to kill a couple of birds of prey (which I and pretty much all other shooters would condemn in the strongest possible terms), the net contribution shooting makes to conservation is still massively positive!

egg collectors are a minor problem. If it wasn't why are raptor numbers diminishing at a greater rate than other species?

If you google 'predator prey pyramid' or something like that you'll understand. It is the destruction of habitat of the prey animals that is largely to blame. A predator such as a bird of prey requires a breeding population of prey to provide a sustainable food source. Usually this prey population has to number in the dozens or even hundreds of individuals to support a single predator. Numbers of prey animals are so enormous in comparison to the predators that their reductions in numbers are much harder to chart accurately and even then, in percentage terms a reduction of (say) 2% of prey animals will result in a much larger % reduction in the predator numbers because each individual predator carries a much higher % weighting.

If you follow this logic then domestic cats do more harm to our wildlife than gamekeepers. eestimates range from 6 - 10 million small birds and mammals killed by cats each year so who knows how many birds of prey that translates into. Of course the rspb wouldn't dare speak out against cat owners because of how many of their own members they might alienate. Far better to go after the easy, politically fashionable target. They're just the same as the RSPCA but are much smarter about it.

I've not said at any point that shooting is bad, and I agree that estates managed for shooting can support lots of other wildlife. All I'm saying is that raptor persecution by some gamekeepers/estate owners is real and that the more industrialised grouse moors are managed exclusively to generate lots of grouse, using certain methods that may not be great for other wildlife. Less intensively managed moors that do 'walk-up' shoots rather than driven shoots are a lot more wildlife-friendly as the artifically high grouse numbers aren't needed.

It's not the case that predator numbers across the board are diminishing faster than other species. Most of our raptors are stable or increasing. The ones having problems are the hen harrier, golden eagle and kestrel. With the first two, there is strong evidence (see above) that persecution is a key factor. The kestrel's decline is probably down to habitat factors (many other farmland birds are similarly declining). Other species including white-tailed eagle, buzzard, red kite, goshawk and peregrine but they have strong populations away from conflict areas and are not declining overall.

And tbh I don't see the relevance of cats - this is a thread about the 'glorious 12th' (today!). The existence of one problem doesn't make another problem go away.

Oops, last sentence of second para should have been 'Other species including white-tailed eagle, buzzard, red kite, goshawk and peregrine are also persecuted, but they have strong populations away from conflict areas and are not declining overall.'

DH says that grouse moors are now heavily populated by grouse who have bred naturally and the pressure on gamekeepers to discourage or eliminate the predators has reduced so perhaps there will be a corresponding rise in birds of prey.

Ultimately it's far more about overall habitat, and the reduction of birds generally owes far more to domestic cats and magpies who particularly take the eggs of nesting songbirds.

Let's hope he's right, because something needs to change, or England will lose the hen harrier as a breeding bird. I've posted a ton of links already but this report from Natural England (a pdf) is a good summary of the issues, from data on breeding productivity and survival gathered in the field by researchers for the Hen Harrier Recovery Project. I found it particularly striking that 70% of attempts that failed on grouse moors did so because one or both parents disappeared, compared to 0-10% on other habitats. Adult hen harriers have very few natural predators...

Btw, 35 years' worth of BTO records of declining songbird populations (that's not all songbirds - many species are stable or increasing) show that they are faring no worse in areas where magpies are common than where they are rare.