AIBU to wonder what people don't like about Chris Packham?

[MRex]

Obviously people actually setting fire to his gates are plain lunatics: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-58861252. The article talks about all these other online threats, dead animals and other mischief however, which implies a fair number of individuals who expend time and energy going after him. He's just an environmentalist campaigner who wants a bit more wild space, a few beavers introduced, fewer birds shot... he isn't a man of great power. So what do these people fear so much?

@QuestionEverythingBaby

Excellent We could do with more, including people to deal with urban foxes

Why? Why have we got more of a right to habitat our towns than the animals who lived there before us? Too many humans is the problem not too many foxes.

And yes yes to 'the townies don't understand how the countryside works' shite.

On that basis we should leave rats alone as well. No thanks.

And YABVU in making "habitat" into a veb.

@tttigress

The BBC is supposed to be apolitical, as you say he is a campaigner, maybe people don't like him politicising the BBC.

There is nothing saying people can't express a political opinion on the BBC, it would be incredibly bland if that were the case. The requirement is simply to show balance.

If Packham is politicising the BBC, then goodness knows what that dangerous environmentalist David Attenborough is doing.

I've come across a couple of people who have worked with Packham. They said that his social communication problems cause some difficulties but once you get to know him it's easy enough to to discount them, and fundamentally he is a very kind man.

The farmers employ trained people to come in and shoot the foxes to keep the numbers down. Its cheaper and more efficient than operating a hunt

Agree. But shooting or lamping also carries the risk of gangrene and a long painful death over months, unless the marksmen are so skilled they never miss a shot. Same with snaring, gassing, poisoning foxes (I know some farmers resort to these methods) it often leaves foxes and other wildlife injured or ill rather than dead.

I’m still trying to mop up the tea I spilt from reading the post about farmers should capture, neuter and release foxes. I don’t think I need to explain why that won’t work?

Hunting has never been purely about fox control has it, unless a farmer identified a particular covert where a particular fox lived, (eg a fox that had a taste for killing livestock), and asked the hunt to put hounds into that place to dispatch it or flush it out.

Trail hunting (and I’m talking about genuine legal trail hunting here where no foxes are killed and hounds follow a scent, not the odd rogue hunt who use it as a disguise) mimics hunting yet he wants that banned too?
Trail hunting is a popular social sport in the country, the excitement and atmosphere of galloping and jumping alongside 40 other riders is something you can’t really re-create without the discipline and rules of an old-style hunt, even with a pack of bloodhounds who have never been trained to hunt fox or deer. The red coats exist to show the riders who the staff are (who to follow, who to listen to etc) or there’d be chaos. Don’t the cavalry and event horses go trail hunting as part of their training?

I am anti-blood sports and anti badger culls but still could never take to him properly, even when I was a kid watching The Really Wild Show. Just a gut feeling.

I like him; he has ASD and so does my son. When he announced that he had ASD my son felt 'if he can do it so can I' so that was an encouragement for him. I'm from a very rural environment, I have never agreed with hunting or culling badgers and I agree with him on that too. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do feel he is very knowledgable, and I like to hear his point of view.
As an aside his stepdaughter Megan McCubbin is absolutely amazing ! I'm a big fan of her too.

There town / country divide is an out of date concept. I live in the countryside and I think he is wonderful. Yes he is a bit eccentric but he is exactly the type of environmental campaigner we need.
Every time I walk on the moors near my home I feel sad they aren't re-wilded and I notice the lack of wildlife.
Luckily I think the tide is turning.
I honestly don't give a damn about grouse hunting being a tradition for 100s of years. Change is coming.

Yes it is out dated. I grew up in the countryside and didn’t know anyone who was pro fox hunting. Even farmers. I also feel sad when I see barren areas. Dartmoor, Wales, bits of Scotland. George Monbiot writes a book, Feral, which lays out a rewilding plan. Including how to keep the grouse and deer hunters happy.

He's great.. a legend. For me this just demonstrates that people who enjoy killing animals for sport are violent arseholes and narrow minded.

We get them round here, self- important morons in their Berber jackets and their Hunter wellies. Dozens of poor little partridges running up the road every time you leave the house and cage reared pheasants that are released into a world that is totally alien so somebody can play the big man (or woman) with a gun.
Pathetic!

Rats are fine in their place, without human rubbish they are just another small mammal.

Does he have a petition about rewinding the royal estates? I’d like to sign it.

Does he have a diagnosis of ASD? I think he does. I think I remember a programme or reading something about it and it helped me to understand why he can be a bit blunt sometimes. I think may be he speaks his mind sometimes in a way that might irk, if you don’t like that or don’t understand what ASD can mean.

He’s also shining a light on some things that, in my view, are morally reprehensible (blood sports etc) but clearly involve people who lack empathy (to support blood sports I can’t imagine you have much empathy).

None of that, of course, justifies the abuse, threats and behaviour he is on the receiving end of. Good for him for not letting it silence him.

I think he’s great too. I think saying what needs to be said, regardless of who it bothers, is a useful skill sometimes. He loves nature and can see the harm we are doing. Good for him using his fame to highlight this.

I live in the countryside and support his views. I think there is a shift that the countryside alliance and co don’t realise yet.

I live in the countryside and have always thought he is brilliant.

@Pinkprawns

I think it might have something to do with being a sanctimonius prick

Yes, this. I broadly agree with him but still find him insufferable.

@Mybalconyiscracking how do you anticipate that Britain will have food security and we will all eat if we rewild everything?

@elbea it's not about rewinding farmland! It's about the baron moorlands where there is no farmland. If left to nature, these should be covered in trees. But the heather is burnt each year so people can hunt. They are not natural habitats.

*rewilding 😆

I like him, support him all the way. Was very nice when I met him too. He's so passionate about protecting our wildlife and diversity.

I've lived in the countryside and trust me there are many views not just those of pro hunting types

'We need to stop chasing cures for cancer and things like that and start realising that the health of the planet goes beyond the health of human beings.'

This

@WeatherwaxLives

He's also pro badger / anti cull, which is a really really divisive topic.

Why is that such a divisive topic?

Very few people agree that a natural ancient population ( badgers) should be culled to go through the motions of protecting an artificial, inherently unstable population (cattle) - which is in fact too large, homogenous and artificial to ever be stabilised anyway-

Even people who want to kill badgers to attempt some negligible and much disputed protection to cattle can clearly see why people disagree

You'd think, wouldn't you? But in my experience many people with anything to do with the beef/dairy industry just will not apply logic and would rather badgers were completely exterminated.

I place the majority of the blame with the government (all of them, not just the current one) for completely refusing to consider alternatives to culling and the completey unreliable bTB cattle test.

In my experience anyone telling a dairy/beef farmer they're anti badger cull is treated as though they are personally infecting cattle with bTB left right and centre. It's emotive, on both sides, and that never results in civilised debate.

I genuinely never mention badgers in any social situation as it will cause arguments even between close friends.

Didn't Monty Don leave Twitter as he mentioned culling and was attacked for it?

I agree with him re the blood sports. I live rurally and the local blood sports brigade are like a bunch of lawless dads army types only fatter and stupider.
The pheasants are hand reared so therefore tame and fat so don't bother flying much. I've heard stories of birds being thrown into the air to make them fly to be shot. Call that sport eh?
The only people who it attracts are entry level middle class men and occasionally their deluded girlfriends who like to think killing hand reared defenseless animals makes them more upper class. It doesn't. It makes any pro blood sport an absolute bell end.

He knows nothing about countryside management, the fact is the most biodiverse landscape you willl find is a well managed grouse moor, by contrast the RSPB reserves have far less red listed species. And yes the RSPB carries out vermin control also. He has a personal agenda and is a very calculating man, not afraid to spread untruths and twist facts to suit his agenda.