Jump to content

Shooting Short Eared Owls


Morrisman
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 78
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Having being in a grouse shooting syndicate many years ago (couldn't afford it now!), we found that birds of prey took only an insignificant number of grouse to make no difference to the population. Foxes, crows and stoats were not welcome however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These tow rags give decent and law abiding shooters a bad name .hope the take his license off him .and sort the land owner out for letting him do it ( or did he tell him to do it ) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pathetic action from a poor excuse of a gamekeeper. 

Thug comes to mind. After all that's going on at the moment to do with shooting you'd think that anyone with an once of common sense would think twice about this kind of behaviour. But then, is this guy capable of thinking at all. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not condoning it, but, these keepers are put under a lot of pressure to show the guns a good head of birds, keepers jobs are not easy to come by and losing your job also means losing your home.

an old keeper said to me once....A keeper is only as good as his last season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet again some idiot has dragged the reputation of responsible shooting and shooting related conservation into disrepute..........handing a proverbial stick to the antis to beat us with!.....will some people never learn?

They were Short Eared Owl....not Hen Harriers!

Edited by panoma1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Disgraceful, but Keepers are under pressure and shoot owners should also be held culpable to have more incentive to stop the behaviour.

HOWEVER — No mention of Hen Harrier apart from in title ....

0Disgraceful, but Keepers are under pressure and shoot owners should also be held culpable to have more incentive to stop the behaviour.

HOWEVER — No mention of Hen Harrier apart from in title ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, panoma1 said:

Yet again some idiot has dragged the reputation of responsible shooting and shooting related conservation into disrepute..........handing a proverbial stick to the antis to beat us with!.....will some people never learn?

Quite right.  I'm a shooting man through and through, but laws have to be obeyed.  If you break the law - punishment.  If you disagree with the law - Parliament. 

I think he got off very lightly indeed (but all sentences are like that these days.)

2 minutes ago, PPP said:

HOWEVER — No mention of Hen Harrier apart from in title ....

Good point - what have hen harriers to do with this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, panoma1 said:

Yet again some idiot has dragged the reputation of responsible shooting and shooting related conservation into disrepute..........handing a proverbial stick to the antis to beat us with!.....will some people never learn?

They were Short Eared Owl....not Hen Harriers!

Sorry, did it too quickly to think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I work with some conservation bodies, part of my work is raptor monitoring etc. I spend a lot of my time and energy defending the shooting community, trying to build bridges, it's in all our interests to work together. 

Every time something like this happens it's a total kick in the balls for the shooting community's reputation and a massive "I told you so!" for all the people out there who think that every shooter is out there murdering birds of prey. 

The fact that this sort of stuff still goes on is utterly ridiculous. 

******* cretin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, old'un said:

Not condoning it, but, these keepers are put under a lot of pressure to show the guns a good head of birds, keepers jobs are not easy to come by and losing your job also means losing your home.

an old keeper said to me once....A keeper is only as good as his last season.

Wouldn't one of the solutions be to put a restriction on the shooting of game on a particular piece of land if an employee is found to be shooting BOP? Then there would be no pressure put on anyone for fear of losing their shooting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Must admit while not condoning it, it really is a making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Dunno wot the munbers are in eng, but i scotland actual confirmed numbers of raptor persecution is now down to single figures most years.

It's not that big a problem probably far more BoP will die flying into power lines and wind turbines than are actually persecuted each year

In the last 20 years shooting as came on  massively, still have a wee way to go but being honest u'll never ever stop it 100%.

 

People drink and drive all the time yet no one trys to ban either drinking or driving, so folk will always break the law wot ever

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, AVB said:

Wouldn't one of the solutions be to put a restriction on the shooting of game on a particular piece of land if an employee is found to be shooting BOP? Then there would be no pressure put on anyone for fear of losing their shooting. 

That is what the antis want...to licence shoots, so if shoots or shoot owners or shoot employees do anything (not just control Raptors) they don't like or approve of, they can lobby for the the shoots licence be rescinded!

Its just the anti shooting extremists using tactics designed, not to protect Raptors, but to curtail and finally ban shooting!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, panoma1 said:

That is what the antis want...to licence shoots, so if shoots or shoot owners or shoot employees do anything (not just control Raptors) they don't like or approve of, they can lobby for the the shoots licence be rescinded!

Its just the anti shooting extremists using tactics designed, not to protect Raptors, but to curtail and finally ban shooting! 

And activities like that in the film give them the ammunition to drum up political and public support. Raptor persecution is hugely damaging to shooting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, stagboy said:

It is a problem, because it is deliberate criminality, it damages the image of shooting and there is still far too much of it going on, regardless of the actual conviction rate. 

 

Aye but there is still too much drink driving going on too, u don't see other law abiding drivers feeling guility or embarassed over it.

I don't drink drive or commit wildlife crime so have absolutley nothing to be embarassed or feel guility over.

The boys been caught and punished, probably lose gun licences, job so house/kennels/vehicle, if he's got any kids mibee move school, might find it very difficult to find another job again.

 

The anti's and various charities are just using it as a tool to discredit shooting (have tried banning it straight but realised it will never work) tried or still trying the lead shot angle (why would rspb/wwt be funding studies of lead shot in game meat and its effects on humans)

If they really cared about HH they shhould be investing money in langholm, it was producing/fledging 40 odd HH chicks some years on that moor alone, now since the keepering has stopped it will drop back to 2 pairs of HH which will most likely have there nest predated by vermin.

The rspn also never supported the HH action plan, because it included brood management (ie moving chicks away from areas to be released in other unpopulated areas)

All they care about is the politics and class war there wageing, they see the HH and grouse shooting as the weakest link so are targeting it

 

Panamo in scotland its really not that far away from that stage already, have 2 tools Vicarious? Liability, where they can fine the land owner for any wrong doing/wildlife crimes on his land even if shooting right let out or a 3rd person done the deed, don't thin u even have to be found guilty (know of 1 shoot fined 100+K yet the keeper was never found guility in court)

Also SNH now have the power to suspend anyone from using the General Licence if they even SUSPECT they are committing wildlife crimes.

While not licensing as such not many wild bird shoots could survive withut using the GL

 

Didn't see the rspb releasing the film of them dropping an Osprey chick from its nest to its death of the ammount of nests deserted by BoP due to disturbance from raptor watchers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, scotslad said:

I don't drink drive or commit wildlife crime so have absolutley nothing to be embarassed or feel guility over.

I know what you mean, but I have to say that  I personally feel embarrassed by the actions of this criminal, because I have spent years telling my birdy friends that it's only a tiny minority, its in decline, etc etc and then the RSPB provide this rock-solid, horrifying evidence and it goes viral. That's not the RSPB's fault for milking it, it's the criminal's fault for breaking the law. And how many of these incidents have we had in the media NW England this year? Remember the horrific Bowland peregrine case. We all know it was keeper who committed that.

In this latest case with the owls, was the keeper pressurised into such behaviour? It can happen, as we all know.

Who is the owner of the moor in question - have they given any statement? 

Who paid for his defence in court? And if they did so, why? If I committed a crime at my place of work, there is no way my employer would hire me an expensive legal team, so if that happened here, then what does this tell us?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not defending the illegal killing of raptors, but let's get this into perspective......how many proven (not suspected or alleged!) cases of the unlawful killing of raptors were there in the UK last year?.........compare that to how many cases of murder (homicide!) there were throughout the UK in the same time period?

Is a birds life more important than a human life? If you gauge the media's, protectionists, anti, RSPB, raptor groups etc, etc, shock horror reaction to every report of a raptors death...........and virtually no reaction to the many, many incidences of murder, you would be forgiven for thinking..........it is!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...