GWCT: 2016 Grouse Season Briefing

As the grouse season gets into full swing, GWCT has published a briefing that provides a useful summary of their 2016 grouse counts.  It also covers their leadership on a range of moorland and upland research and their input into other initiatives, that includes the projects I am running for Scotland's Moorland Forum.

View the briefing

Petition: Protect Grouse Moors and Grouse shooting

Revised 24 August

Whatever your perceptions about grouse shooting, I urge you to consider the Countryside Alliance briefing 'Grouse Shooting - the Facts' that is promoted by this petition.  This briefing was prepared by the Countryside Alliance as part of the build up to the start of the grouse season on 12th August, with a view to introducing some factual information into the debate.

Management for grouse may not be perfect, but it is reacting to change brought about by increasing knowledge and understanding of the importance of moorland beyond simply producing grouse.  For example, the move to enhance peatland, and the embracing of management for the benefit of moorland waders.  

In my travels around the country, I witness the passion and knowledge of grouse keepers at first hand; they are a force for good and worthy of support.

It is interesting to look at the interactive map of where the petition has been signed.  There are some interesting hotspots and very few areas where the petition has not received any support.  As I started to write this article, the petition had 9,649 - it has gone up by 13 since then.  It is on track to achieve the threshold of 10,000 signatures required to achieve a response from the government.

The introductory page is here and the petition runs for six months, until 15 February 2017.  If you have not already signed the petition, I recommend it to you.

Sign this petition

The Case for Grouse Moor Management

Adam Smith, Director Scotland for the GWCT, has published a blog post that states the case for grouse moor management being an essential part of sustaining Scotland’s uplands.

Adam is a member of the HT Board, and the post can be viewed on the GWCT website.

GWCT - Best Practice Use of Medicated Grit

Photo: GWCT

This new guidance was launched at the CLA Game Fair, last Friday (31 July).  I recommend this guide as essential reading for anyone who is already using medicated grit, or is contemplating its use.

The guidance runs through the development history of medicated grit and highlights the two major concerns arising from the outstanding success of this technique: resistance to the current treatment through overuse, and the emergence of new diseases.  The need to assess worm burdens and deployment techniques are covered and the guidance concludes with a valuable best practice check list.

Grouse shooting - benefits

As the grouse shooting season draws to a close, The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and the Moorland Association have highlighted the key facts about the value of grouse shooting and the benefit it brings for the economy and the environment.  

This information has been sent to all MPs:

• Heather moorland is rarer than rainforest and 75 per cent of it is found in Britain because of grouse moor management.
• Grouse shooting in England, Wales and Scotland supports conservation work and is worth an estimated £100 million a year.
• Grouse shooting in England, Wales and Scotland supports the equivalent of more than 2,500 jobs.
• Conservation for grouse shooting is landscape-scale management.
• 79 per cent of upland EU Special Protection Areas are managed as grouse moors and up to five times more threatened wading birds are supported on moors managed by gamekeepers.

And for those who prefer their facts in pictures, the buzzword is 'infographic'.

Grouse: Time for a Gritting Holiday?

The GWCT Blog contains this post by Hugo Straker advising caution in the repeated use of medicated grit.

I am far from being a grouse expert, but I am surprised by the response I get during advisory visits about worm burdens in grouse and the gritting policy. I often get the reply that worm burdens are not being assessed and that medicated grit is being used as a prophylactic measure.

There are two issues here: the cost and the build up of resistance to the dugs in medicated grit.  I understand the need to reduce every risk it is possible to manage, but I would have thought a modest expenditure in blood testing would show whether the high cost of medicated grit would be justified.  However, the risk of the build of resistance to worm treatment offered by medicated grit is by far the most important issue.  Medicated grit has been shown to be a fantastic tool, but its use needs to be targeted; it should not just be used as a precautionary measure, however tempting.

Making the Most of Moorland - GWCT guide to grouse moor management

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has published a free guide to grouse moor management that provides information about the role of sporting management in sustaining our upland ecosystems.

Grouse moor licensing

BASC has published a paper entitled “Grouse moor licensing – assessment of proposal and summary of unintended consequences” and the organisation is using this paper to influence policy makers.

The facts presented in this paper serve to highlight how thin the argument in favour of licensing is.  While I can see the need for some change and development in the way that moorland is managed, I can see no logic to justify licensing of grouse moors.  It would be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  Positive and supportive engagement by the licensing lobby is much more likely to achieve benefits for the birds they seek to promote and protect.  They will argue that they have tried everything and achieved nothing, but maybe they ought to look to their approach and tactics before walking away in high dudgeon.

A workable and lasting solution must be achievable, but it will not be achieved without compromise.  In my view, we need to give the brood management proposals a chance and learn from the process.  It may not have have all the answers, but at the very least it will be progress.

'No Silent Spring' in The Scotsman 24 August

The Scotsman picked up my letter to them that reflected my support for Adam Smith's article in the paper on 20 August.  See yesterday's Blog post.

Grouse moors can help diversity and the economy

Adam Smith is Director Scotland for Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust but he is also a Board Member of The Heather Trust.  He has been punching his weight in the pages of The Scotsman and I recommend his article to anyone with an interest in the management of our moorland and upland areas.

I support and endorse his views completely, which are at the core of The Heather Trust.

Balanced management of our moorlands and uplands is essential if we are to hold onto them as vibrant dynamic areas of the country that support society (through their natural (ecosystem) services), maintain their unique ranges of habitats and species, continue to underpin many cultural activities,  provide an income that supports the people and communities that live in these areas that in turn maintain the features that make these areas so attractive for visitors.  It is a complicated list of inter-related features and activities but, as Adam has pointed out, if we allow these areas to unravel, as has happened in parts of the UK, we are left with impoverished land that is denuded of all the features that make the areas so special.

It is far from being all bad news and there are many areas where sensitive management is delivering all the benefits I have outlined, but even in these exemplar areas there is room for improvement.  Adam has singled out Wales as a case study where it has gone wrong and I share his concerns.  This was why I was pleased to have been invited to contribute to an embryonic Moorland Initiative that the CLA is leading in Wales that is promoting the benefits that CLA members could bring to the uplands in Wales if they are given encouragement.  It is an issue that I will be pleased to support in an effort to reverse the decline of the Welsh moorlands and move away from the 'silent spring' state.

Grouse shooting is not for everyone, and it is not appropriate in all moorland areas, but where it does work it provides a focus for income generation and input that acts as a catalyst for activity that spins off to provide much wider benefits to the local area and to the habitats and species that live in these areas.

The Black Grouse - by Patrick Laurie

Patrick has written a lively natural history that is interwoven with his account of his on-going battle to reintroduce black grouse on his farm in Dumfries & Galloway.  His beautiful illustrations convey his passion for these vulnerable birds, so full of character, from their aggressive lekking behaviour to their desperate struggle to survive against nearly-impossible odds in modern Britain.

This book is available from bookshops, or from Merlin Unwin Books – Tel: 01584 877456 or www.merlinunwin.co.uk.  Price £20 + p&p.

Patrick Laurie writes regularly for Shooting Gazette and produces a Monthly Perspective on The Heather Trust’s activity that is published on the Trust’s website.

Withdrawal of Medicated Grouse Grit

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has issued a reminder to grouse moor owners to withdraw medicated grit by 16 July, to provide an adequate withdrawal period to prevent the medication entering the food chain at the start of the grouse shooting season, on 13th August, this year.

This reminder was published in the latest newsletter from the Scottish Moorland Group.  The full newsletter is available to download.