Poles apart. The RSPB's words and their actions

The RSPB has recently appointed a part time Upland Conservation Advisor in the belief that the post will be used to provide, or facilitate, conservation land management advice to complement that which grouse moor owners and their managers may be receiving from other specialist organisations. Whilst the RSPB's wish to work with the shooting industry to build relationships, and to provide a forum to discuss issues in a collaborative way, is applauded, such a wish is contradicted by the RSPB's actions, and its determination to attack grouse shooting and its associated land management practices at every opportunity, irrespective of whether there is any evidence with which to do so.

The appointment has been made following the publication of the RSPB's Gamebird Shooting Review in 2020, the 'draft' principles of which the Countryside Alliance, and other shooting organisations, were unable to support on the grounds that they were clearly intended as a framework for the licensing of all shooting activities in the UK, and significantly restrict the benefits to the environment and economy arising from sustainable gamebird management. There are also major issues with a number of the RSPB's policy positions, including: their determination to end the burning of vegetation on peatlands; the licensing of grouse moors; its opposition to Defra's trial hen harrier brood management scheme which has resulted in record numbers of chicks being successfully fledged; and its calls for the government to introduce new legislation to ban lead shot when the voluntary transition away from lead shot and single use plastics for live quarry shooting with shotguns is already taking place.

It is ironic that the RSPB's Upland Conservation Advisor is based at their Geltsdale Nature Reserve in the North Pennines. Research commissioned by Natural England into the status of breeding birds in the North Pennine Special Protection Area (SPA) revealed that Geltsdale had below average densities of all important moorland birds. There were under half the average number of golden plover and curlew, a third of the black grouse and snipe, and a quarter of the lapwing and redshank than in the rest of the region, the vast majority of which is managed for grouse shooting where predator control and habitat management is undertaken. There were, however, almost double the SPA average for carrion crow on Geltsdale, a predator species culled on most grouse moors. Our response to the RSPB, explaining our scepticism at their offer of to engage, and concerns at some of their actions, can be read here.