The annual farce played out in the media around 12th August was this year made more entertaining by the sporting analogies of no balls and own goals on the part of Ian Botham, once cricketing hero, now dressed up as anti-wildlife villain. His decision to make a personal attack on Chris Packham backfired spectacularly. The petition to parliament started by Mark Avery and supported by Packham had initially done quite well but was quite a long way short of the necessary 100k signatures to get MPs to debate it. All yesterday after Botham's attack on Packham the numbers signing shot up until it was inevitable that the target would be reached.
People sometimes forget that the successful all rounder was not a good captain. And grouse shooting's wealthy PR savvy backers must be wishing he had kept his mouth shut.
Packham's on a bit of a roll at the moment as M&S has decided to stop selling grouse after his intervention. And the BTO has denied that Botham's statistics on bird numbers came from them. Not Beefy's day. He may be the victim of reading too many articles in the Times and Spectator by the appalling Lord Ridley, a many-times discredited columnist whose picture over columns in the Times always makes me think of Dr Strangelove.
Perhaps it's mean to remember that the RSPB has not denied that it also shoots animals on its reserves when they don't fit with its own agenda. Still a long way to go to get real wildlife sanctuaries.
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