Only the most desperate situations should lead to the RSPB, a wildlife conservation charity, bringing in guns to shoot wild deer, one of the few native mammal species remaining from the stock of wildlife much ravaged and persecuted over the centuries. Those who accept the arguments without demanding more sustained and sceptical scrutiny of the decision are themselves guilty of a shallow and selfish attitude to wildlife - one that can be described as ' nice to see the pretty animals when I'm out here but don't have the time to consider any wider implications'. Is it not on a par with the wilful blindness that we see throughout local and international administration, from Rotherham nearby to HSBC.
Has anyone, apart from Friends of Blacka Moor, put these questions to the RSPB? If not why not? The questions are:
1 How come that in an important conference in July 2013 the RSPB chief local officer and spokesman said there were nowhere near enough deer on the Eastern Moors to manage the vegetation so they needed to use cattle? Yet just over a year later they were planning to shoot 25% of them? Who is really driving this?
2 Why are they not first getting rid of all farm livestock, even more effective destroyers of vegetation, given the statement in 1 above?
3 What evidence is there that they've considered and tried alternatives?
4 How does the conservation industry now maintain an enlightened position relating to badgers and birds of prey?
1 comment:
Neil - what, if anything, can be done about this at this late stage? Do you have a contact that we can write to or phone? A petition to sign? The fact is, hardly anyone knows about this. It's been kept very very quiet.
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