Gamekeeper found guilty

[Old Bull]

I could well be wrong but i think the EA have said you are polluting the water courses by allowing them access to it.

[islandgun]

You can lead a horse to water, but in my experience and whatever the Ea say if an animals thirsty they will drink where they want,

[rich1985]

There's a video on you tube of the police, rspb search. I know the estate, the keeper in question and a few other bits and bobs, on the youtube footage the buzzards found in the sack in his she'd look as though they had been frozen ( all same state of decomposition, eyes look like the eyes of pigeons I have frozen etc.) I'm not saying he is not guilty but I am wondering if the case has been eggasurated and the birds in the sack are part of a set up? I do not know the ins and outs of the case and this behaviour has no place in the modern countryside or game keeping.

[Old Bull]

Exactly but the EA don't know that or much else in fact!

[scotslad]

Let me oblige

 

Modern farming favours large fields over small, reduction in hedgerows and stone walls = loss of habitat for birds, reptiles, small mammals etc

 

Pesticides and herbicides sprayed to crops = lack of insect food and in the case of DDT (no longer in use) thinning of eggshells within birds and dramatic reduction in raptor species.

 

Google is your friend, try using it before posting a daft comment

 

There are definitely not more hedges as these are removed to allow easier ploughing/seeding of fields and the loss of ponds is staggering as people prefer troughs now to giving up land to ponds.

 

 

Yes i some areas wot u say may be true, but most of the really big changes happened way before 30 yrs ago. Yet most wildlife was still thriving 30yrs ago as mst BoP's were still in very low numbers due to DDT

 

I have lived and workrd in my area all my life and actually involved with agriculture, so know very well wot may or may not have changed locally.

And i can guarantee u this so called 'modern farming techniques' have not changed very much, tractors have got bigger and less staff, I can also guarantee u there is more ponds and more hedges, this may not be the case everywhere, but to be honest there is a vast area of normal farmland that will not have changed 1 bit in the last 30 -40 years

I have personally built and reclaimed 4 on my shoot with an other planned for next year

 

Wot ur talking about is the blurb associated with intensive arable areas, any area that is not inttensive arable probably has not changed very much and when u get on to more marginal mixed, stock and hill farms.

 

As u can work google and seem to know my local area better than me can u please explain how on some un/semi improved grazing sheep farms there is no virtually no waders nesting succesfully?? And the only modern change to agriculture up there is using a quad bike instead of walking

Yet i can travel 30 miles up the road to very similar equally poor ground and it is alive with waders all fledging young succesfuly, it is a joy to work up there in the late spring.

And in all the tens of thousands of acres i cover with work that is the only 1 valley that i can guarantee to see waders and chicks in those numbers, yet when i was a boy that was the norm

 

 

Not sure about the situ in england but in scotland there are trying to fence off watercoarses within a certain milage of the coast, think something to do with e-coli and water quality on the coast esp if there is a beach nearby, in the headlands there was grants available for the fisheries boards to fence of head waters to improve spawning grounds, althou stock were still allowed to drink out the water but more for bank erosion and to stop rivers becoming very wide and shallow so easily drying out in the summer.

 

Yet in this same 30 year period buzzards were common but nothing like they are now, where NO magpies (never seen my first 1 till i went to uni) now spreading very fast, and badgers were fairly rare althou had a few hotspots (still thankfully nothing like down south) now all these hotspots have merged and very few areas don't have badgers and quite a few have very large numbers.

 

 

995 I think u need to get out abit more and stop watching so much springwatch and don't belive everything google tells u

Edited October 5, 2014 by scotslad

[955i]

 

 

Yes i some areas wot u say may be true, but most of the really big changes happened way before 30 yrs ago. Yet most wildlife was still thriving 30yrs ago as mst BoP's were still in very low numbers due to DDT

 

I have lived and workrd in my area all my life and actually involved with agriculture, so know very well wot may or may not have changed locally.

And i can guarantee u this so called 'modern farming techniques' have not changed very much, tractors have got bigger and less staff, I can also guarantee u there is more ponds and more hedges, this may not be the case everywhere, but to be honest there is a vast area of normal farmland that will not have changed 1 bit in the last 30 -40 years

I have personally built and reclaimed 4 on my shoot with an other planned for next year

 

Wot ur talking about is the blurb associated with intensive arable areas, any area that is not inttensive arable probably has not changed very much and when u get on to more marginal mixed, stock and hill farms.

 

As u can work google and seem to know my local area better than me can u please explain how on some un/semi improved grazing sheep farms there is no virtually no waders nesting succesfully?? And the only modern change to agriculture up there is using a quad bike instead of walking

Yet i can travel 30 miles up the road to very similar equally poor ground and it is alive with waders all fledging young succesfuly, it is a joy to work up there in the late spring.

And in all the tens of thousands of acres i cover with work that is the only 1 valley that i can guarantee to see waders and chicks in those numbers, yet when i was a boy that was the norm

 

 

Not sure about the situ in england but in scotland there are trying to fence off watercoarses within a certain milage of the coast, think something to do with e-coli and water quality on the coast esp if there is a beach nearby, in the headlands there was grants available for the fisheries boards to fence of head waters to improve spawning grounds, althou stock were still allowed to drink out the water but more for bank erosion and to stop rivers becoming very wide and shallow so easily drying out in the summer.

 

Yet in this same 30 year period buzzards were common but nothing like they are now, where NO magpies (never seen my first 1 till i went to uni) now spreading very fast, and badgers were fairly rare althou had a few hotspots (still thankfully nothing like down south) now all these hotspots have merged and very few areas don't have badgers and quite a few have very large numbers.

 

 

995 I think u need to get out abit more and stop watching so much springwatch and don't belive everything google tells u

LOL, it is my job to look for these things, check my sig.

 

Things may well be different in Scotland but I can only state what I see here.

[955i]

Sorry, just realised weblink has mysteriously disappeared, probably cos I am an anti LOL

 

www.arc-ecology.co.uk

[scotslad]

No offence but this is the exact reason we're in this mess, ur not the only 1 with an environmental degree,

Too many academics think that predators have no impact on prey species which is just complete rubbish as no UK predator relies solely on 1 species so will just kill the easiest until there is none left or it becomes harder and so move on to the next

Also this modern thing of thinking a piece of paper or a few leters after ur name means anything. People who have lived and worked on the land for generation after generation notice things, just because they don't have a degree doesn't make any of their observations any less true

 

I have fenced over large parts of N england while i was studying throu summers and after as the money was good, and i would agree vast tracts of N eng are the exact same very little will have changed as reguards as 'modern farming' ; this modern farming is the exact same as blaming every thing on 'global warming' it is an easy catch all blame for all this countries wildlife problems

And it saves all the alleged 'conservation charities' as well as government and ngo bodies from looking to hard at why after millions if not billions of pounds and 30yrs failiing of agri environmental most uk wildlife that hasn't a hook/sharp bill or sharp teeth populations are in free fall. There scheme of purely managing habitat is a complete disaster and has done far more harm to the UK's wildlife

 

Most of the big changes happened well beforw my time in the 50's, 60's and 70's when there was grants for drainage etc to aid production, since the intro of farm subsidies and agri environmental schemes very few hedges will hve been ripped out, but off course that does not suit ur 'modern farming' blame culture

 

Ur from derbyshire, have u not done any work on grouse moors?? A fairly harsh environment with poor weather short growing seasons and little food yet plenty of english moors are harvesting 10'000 brace of grouse a year. Thats a clossal ammount of birds yet they can do it year on year, u drive up the valley on the way there in morning and the fields are filled with wild pheasant broods as well as waders

U look at some of the old game records and they were shooting a clossal ammount of wild grey partridge once upon a time, black grouse were found in every english county

 

Sorry to get on my soap box, and not meaning to be personal but this modern trend for university educated folk instead of promoting boys of the tools really gets my goat, and some of the ****wits i have met over the years with degrees does not help matters

 

Just really annoys me when proper country folks views and observations are made light off, there is plenty of scientific evidence out there, mainly from the GCWT in this country, most of UK's wildlife is onits knees and the folk that should be helping have caused it.

It's not rocket science to fix it either the GCWT have been preeching it for years, Good habitat, Good fedding and Good Predator control,

 

Look at almost every other country in europe despite them not having this commercial game shooting that we have, most control BoP's to some extent or brood managemnet and most also still hunt badgers and will have no where near the densities we have. And there other wildlife is thriving they obviously havent got modern farming over there

[apache]

The simple fact seemingly ignored from all these discussions - the pheasants or partridges (once released) are wild birds. They do not belong to anyone. You can perfectly legally tempt them onto your own land by placing feeder on your boundary. Wild animals can eat wild animals. Granting a licence to control buzzards to protect a wild bird released in such naturally unsustainable numbers is never going to happen. It's pretty obvious really.

 

Maybe shooters and those offering shooting ought to look at the numbers of birds released and consider the sustainability of it all. Something is badly wrong when to get the birds to simply live they have to be filled with various medicines (fundamentally due to over stocking and poor husbandry). When you talk to shooters who went game shooting 20/30 years ago the bags were nothing like they are now. I suspect everything would be done better with fewer birds released and a focus on quality rather than quantity of birds.

[scotslad]

I don't doubt wot ur saying apache and i dare say there is a few large commercial shoots on the edge of he moors with ur toppgraphy that will be putting down a lot of birds, and i know a few locally putting many many thousand down.

I know of 2 that need to turn over a million a year just to break even, But that is money into an area with little other money coming in esp not on that scale. I'm sure u will appreciate the money that commercial shooting can bring into an area (and i must admit i dinae entirely agree with it at the very big bag level)

 

Apache i would guess u know ur local farms fairly well and coming from the dales u will probably be very lucky and still have the birdlife i remember 30 years ago, but i bet in ur local area there has also been very little of this 'modern farming improvemnts' and certainly not in the last 30yrs.

 

But the vast majority of land that is shot over will not be large commercial shoots but small diy syndicates, or small scale farm shoots.

 

My problem is why are numbers of waders, song birds, farmland birds even garden birds (surely modern farming can't be blamed there?) are all declining massively?

I spent 4 years at uni studying conservation and i cannae even remember predatation ever being mentioned! Surely it atleast deserves a passing comment?

I always wanted to be a grouse keeper but asnae as popular 20odd years ago, i looked intoa lot of scientific studies mainly on the black grouse and caper, the metholodgy of most of thes surveys was pretty similar wether UK and scandinvia based.

All th UK studies found the cuase of decline was purely a loss of habitat and fencing collisions, yet ALL the scandinvinan studies found it was a mix of habitat, predatation and less so fencing.

But for no UK study to mention predation is just madness!! Caper are on the verge of extinction (again) from scotland purely due to predation, even on keepered estates which are the last stronghold are declining rapidly due to the now common protected Pine Martin, the Scootish Gamekeeper Association have been shouting about this for years yet no one is intrested

 

1 off the semi local farms has diversified into a red kite feeding centre, i was in charge of slaughtering and burning her sheep back in 2001 and no kites then, In 13 years they now have over 100 coming to the feed and there is red kites all over the place, some fairly big populations 30-40 miles away and expanding every year.

Is that any more sustainable??

And while kites are mainly carrion eaters, more so than other BoP's, but they do still take pheasants from pens But as JRR rightly said if kites are eating all the carrion wot are the other carrion eaters going to do?

Atleast with pheasants while if released in high numbers locally do tend to stay in that area so u dinae have to go very fat to see no negative afects of them , not so with Kites

 

I'm not wanting a wholescale sluaghter of BoP's or any other protected predator (and i doubt any keeper would) but there needs to be sme coomon sense applied and some common ground found.

This will never happen until some folk realse that predators actually predate on things.

The RSPB won't even put its name too or back the Hen Harrier recovery plan as it doesnae suit its politics (membership publicity)

Most BoP's are beautiful birds and its a privaledge to see them out in the wilds hunting/flying but it does sour the experience when u know the damage they can do to ur livliehood

[jrr230]

Oh I nearly forgot to mention the DOMESTIC CAT that causes havock with small bird populations and mice, which just happen to be food for raptors, making it harder for those further down the food chain to find food for an ever expanding unbalanced raptor population.

However you will not find the RSPB moaning about cats, because it's their owners that put their small change in the tins they rattle at us. Oh no just have a pop at the keepers it's easier.

 

And 955i do you have more owls now than in previous years in your area ? I doubt it. Any idea why ?

After all they are only a specialist raptor , when all the other raptors are doing so well, they seem to be in decline, I wonder why the RSPB don't seem to be that bothered that all those CATS are killing all those mice. There's only so much to go round don't forget with all those "changes in farming practices " that every anti claims is to blame. So is re-introduction of more raptors and strict laws protecting those we already have such a good idea ? I wonder. After all we only have the countryside in our care and must account fo it to those who come after us.

Oh and we'll said scotslad.

Edited October 6, 2014 by jrr230

[scotslad]

Oh I nearly forgot to mention the DOMESTIC CAT that causes havock with small bird populations and mice, which just happen to be food for raptors, making it harder for those further down the food chain to find food for an ever expanding unbalanced raptor population.

However you will not find the RSPB moaning about cats, because it's their owners that put their small change in the tins they rattle at us. Oh no just have a pop at the keepers it's easier.

 

And 955i do you have more owls now than in previous years in your area ? I doubt it. Any idea why ?

After all they are only a specialist raptor , when all the other raptors are doing so well, they seem to be in decline, I wonder why the RSPB don't seem to be that bothered that all those CATS are killing all those mice. There's only so much to go round don't forget with all those "changes in farming practices " that every anti claims is to blame. So is re-introduction of more raptors and strict laws protecting those we already have such a good idea ? I wonder. After all we only have the countryside in our care and must account fo it to those who come after us.

 

Shooting times reader??

 

This is the quote printed on the inside page of shooting times every week

 

 

"The wildlife of today is not ours to dispose of as we please We have it in trust.

We must account for it to those who come after" King George VI

 

In 30 yrs the wildlife of this country hasvery quickly changed beyond all rocognition, and i'd argue more so than in other countries because of our fascination ith 'cute' predators.

In germany cats are considered fair game when not on there owners ground, in OZ and NZ the army go out and shoot cats and feral dogs althou now they legaly poison them more often.

 

We really need to wake up and see wots happening while there is still wildlfie left to protect

[KFC]

When speaking of game shooting the farthest most people get is 'Gameshoots rear their birds, release them then shoot them year after year' and land is spoken of as arable or moorland.

 

Our shoot is in Fenland and is almost totally arable, i.e intensive farming.

 

What is not understood is the amount of conservation work which goes along with running a shoot. In amongst all the acres of cultivated land are cover-crops which provide habitat, food and shelter for a vast number of birds, insects and mammals, which we pay hundreds of pounds a year for and, without which, many species would not survive.

 

It gets a bit annoying when, the minute a bird of prey is found dead then it is assumed that a Gamekeeper must have killed it.

There's a video on YouTube of a Buzzard taking Osprey chicks and also BoP flying into wind turbines.

 

 

 

 

Having said that, of course the gamekeeper in the OP was guilty, no excuses.

Edited October 6, 2014 by KFC

[Whitebridges]

Quick update:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29931463

 

Headline is: 'Worst' bird of prey poisoner Allen Lambert given suspended sentence.

 

Does the punishment fit the crime?

[Gordon R]

"Worst" is a bit misleading - only the RSPB's word for this.

 

Does the punishment fit the crime? No.

 

He has not owned up to what he did. He should have gone down.

[robbiep]

I have to agree, Gordon. Suspended sentence is a joke.

[Flashman]

Why all the vitriol?

 

Tried, convicted and sentenced. Perhaps the crime isn't a capital offence after all?

 

Leave the bleating to the Antis.

[keg]

At Centreparcs last year, we attended a wonderful talk on Owls, not many people there, just us and another family we had gone along with. The chap giving the talk was from Yorkshire and when i mentioned the reintroduction of Red Kites on the Harewood estate near us, he explained that because of the breeding programme, the Red Kites are wiping out everything below them in the food chain.

 

It's what happens when we meddle.

[Whitebridges]

Why all the vitriol?

 

Tried, convicted and sentenced. Perhaps the crime isn't a capital offence after all?

 

Leave the bleating to the Antis.

 

I'm wondering about your thinking on this Flashman. OK the bloke was a gamekeeper but should this excuse him?

 

I shot and fished for years and am a billion miles away from being an "anti", yet I feel let down by this bloke and reckon he got off bloody lightly for what he did.

 

The things he did are not on and he should have gone down IMHO.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Whitebridges

[robbiep]

Why all the vitriol?

 

Tried, convicted and sentenced. Perhaps the crime isn't a capital offence after all?

 

Leave the bleating to the Antis.

Why all the vitriol ?

 

Because he makes ALL of us look bad. People see cases like this, and assume that we are all at it, but we just haven't been caught yet.

 

Oh, and if you think that's vitriol ... I'll put it a bit more bluntly. He should have been given a 3+ year sentence. That way he is a 'prohibited person' for life when he gets released.

Edited November 6, 2014 by robbiep

[overandunder2012]

why did he take the bodies home is the man an idiot ?, clearly not the sharpest tool in the box by a long way deserves what he got

Edited November 7, 2014 by overandunder2012

[Davyo]

Quick update:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29931463

 

Headline is: 'Worst' bird of prey poisoner Allen Lambert given suspended sentence.

 

Does the punishment fit the crime?

He should be jailed and the estate/shoot sold off and monies given to charities,just another slap on the wrist.Need to start making examples of these *********

[rich1985]

Like said don't know the ins and outs but he had upset people in the past I'm not for 1 min saying he is innocent but I still suspect a set up with the birds in the bag in garage, I know him, and the estate. I do believe the estate had given money back that was given to them for conservation.

[Gordon R]

So what exactly are you saying? I'm a bit confused.

[fenboy]

He should be jailed and the estate/shoot sold off and monies given to charities,just another slap on the wrist.Need to start making examples of these *********

Only it would have no bearing on him , it not being his shoot or estate , should a shop be taken of its owner because the employee is short changing customers.

 

The estate owners were not the one breaking the law , nor were they the ones being prosecuted so why should they lose it because of the actions of another ?