A Devastating Riposte to 'Crop and Crap' ?

I have copies of the A4 laminated notices SWT have posted up on Blacka previous years when announcing the return of their cows to the moor. Each year the text of the poster is slightly different as staff agonise trying to find a fresh way to justify what's inherently unjustifiable. Maybe half a day's work went into this year's revamping the old file. This year it's not 'heathland' but 'moorland'. You can imagine the fingers poised on the keyboard as the decision is taken to delete the one word and replace it with the other. Was there consultation with the resident Marketing and Communications Manager (or 'spin-doctor')  I wonder? In which case a whole day or even two might have been needed. Ways have to be found of spending that farm subsidy after all.

Generally however it's a case of marginal tweakings here and there. The one new feature -such radical reworkings don't come that often - is reference to the habit their cows have of using the place as a public lavatory.



This blog of course may have nothing to do with what SWT chooses to focus on. They certainly like to maintain that is the case. But I'm reminded of our previous posts on this subject. Those posts or something similar may have sparked this change of the file. Samples here .... and here. But the riposte here is rapier swift - having been in gestation for a year or two.

To take this new statement seriously you have to believe that when cow defecation is not liberally splattered on the footpaths and around gates, insects on Blacka, and by extension 'chicks and fledglings' too, are seriously threatened. But this wildlife trust propaganda is not directed to those who think. The local conservation people believe we are all stupid of course and that may be  because they have come across some of us who probably are. If you go round door to door across the whole of Sheffield  getting people to sign bank mandates for membership of SWT you will meet some who will believe you: how else do they get 6,000 members?

But the question that haunts me is: if shit is so wonderful for wild places and biodiversity why do they not transport the SWT HQ lavatory output onto the moors on a daily basis? There will surely be insect and micro-organisms that will relish it. Biodiversity is everything.


This one came up last time. You would have perhaps thought shame would hold them back from repeating it.

This year the last phrase is added proof of some mental struggle. But can they really be talking about light trampling in respect of cattle and when they know that the beasts have twice trampled very heavily on Bog Asphodel flowers in Cowsick?  But that's why they use the word 'light' isn't it? They're trying to extricate themselves from responsibility for  what the cows have done!!! "It's not our fault gov'; the beasts didn't read the orders!"  

This is another one that is repeated from previous years. It was garbage then and it is now. The project to stop these shrubs and trees from performing their role of natural succession is doomed to failure. The last 5 years of cattle grazing has done nothing to stop the inevitable drive for ecological restoration that SWT and NE wish to wage war on.

Here's a target area for heathland (?moorland?),  more scrub (lovely scrub, much lovelier than cowpats and don't the wild birds love it?) than before they brought on the cows.

That's because the cows shun the heather areas in favour of the grassy places. The only animals that feed off the bramble and scrub are deer. But the C.A.P. doesn't pay up for them.

Here's one this morning eating what SWT's cows are unlikely to be interested in. Can anyone believe the trust know what they're doing? Their accountants perhaps.