What is ‘pheasant shooting’?
What is ‘pheasant shooting’? Put simply, pheasant shooting is the annual slaughter of millions of birds, which are shot as live targets between October and the end of January (the so-called ‘open season’ for pheasant shooting). But just as with ‘grouse shooting’ this isn’t something that can or should be put simply. It is a […]
Stage 2 of Scotland’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill brings snare ban closer
Holyrood’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee met on 7 February to discuss amendments to Scotland’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill. The Bill is at stage 2, and the committee voted on an amendment, put forward by MSP Gillian Martin, which will make snare use illegal. Seven MSPs voted for the amendment, with two voting against […]
Doug Maw vs the Duke of Norfolk’s ‘predator control’
On 24 January, a judge at Lewes Crown Court in West Sussex found anti-snare campaigner, animal rescuer, and hunt sab Doug Maw not guilty on all nine charges brought against him by Edward Fitzalan-Howard, the 18th Duke of Norfolk. The charges had included trap damage (ie criminal damage) and snare theft on the Duke’s huge […]
What is grouse shooting?
What is grouse shooting? Put simply, grouse shooting is the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Red Grouse, which are shot as live targets between the now infamous 12th of August (the ‘Ingorious 12th’) and December 10th (the period which makes up the so-called ‘open season’ for shooting Red Grouse). But just as with […]
Ten reasons why 2023 was a good year for wildlife
For those of us who love wildlife, it is easy to fall into despair when we read reports of foxes being killed and birds of prey being poisoned. Many of us will need a reminder that positive events happened in 2023! As the year comes to a close, we give ten reasons why this was […]
Inside Protect the Wild: why did we create Protectors of the Wild?
Many organisations – from wildlife charities to the police – ask us to ‘report wildlife crime’ when we see it taking place. The idea is that all of us can become ‘eyes in the field’, watching for crime or illegal persecution and helping stop it. It’s a simple and potentially very empowering concept. The problem […]
Inside Protect the Wild: why write news articles?
At Protect the Wild, we don’t just campaign to end the hunting and shooting industries. We also keep our supporters informed with news articles. For the past two years, we have covered news on a range of topics, including the criminal acts of fox hunters; how the shooting industry is responsible for lethally poisoning birds […]
Why Protect the Wild doesn’t support licencing of the shooting industry.
Staggering levels of raptor persecution (the illegal persecution of birds of prey) have been in the news again following both the release of the RSPB’s Birdcrime report for 2022 and the Scottish Parliament voting on November 30th to support the general principles of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Bill. The Bill includes measures to introduce […]
The King’s Speech: biodiversity and climate clearly not a priority.
King Charles III addressed Parliament this morning setting out the government’s policy priorities for the year ahead. Well-trailed in advance, the speech was expected “to put criminal justice “at the heart” of its plans”. Speaking ahead of the speech Rishi Sunak said: “I want everyone across the country to have the pride and peace of […]
Ben Wallace and the Right’s doomed push for the ‘countryside’ vote
Ben Wallace, the belligerent and unloveable Conservative MP for Wyre and Preston North, is all over the media today after yet another attack on sabs and monitors. Writing in the increasingly hysterical Daily Telegraph, Wallace, Secretary of Defence until he resigned in August to ‘invest in the parts of life’ he claims to have neglected […]
Moorland Association Director guilty of illegal burning of moorland
Ben Ramsden, ex-Director of the Moorland Association, has pleaded guilty to three charges of burning deep peat on his family’s Lofthouse Moor, which lies within the East Nidderdale Moor Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Landowners burn peat to maintain the moor for grouse shooting. Raptor Persecution UK reported that Ramsden resigned from the Moorland […]
UK FIRST: Wales snare ban comes into force today
The Wales snare ban has finally come into force today, on 17 October 2023. The country is the first in the UK to implement such a ban. Scotland, too, is likely to be following in Wales’ footsteps. Meanwhile, England lags far behind both countries when it comes to the welfare of our wildlife. The Welsh […]
The vile Pheasant shooting ‘season’ has started
With barely a press release or salivating media article, the pheasant shooting ‘season’ has started again in the UK. Over the next few months (until 1st of February) the countryside will echo with unwanted and upsetting reminders that birds are dying in vast numbers. It’s opened in marked contrast to the flurry of vapid puff […]
Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #5: Shropshire Wildlife Monitors
The Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund was set up in summer 2023 to help put ‘eyes in the field‘, empowering people to protect British wildlife. We set the fund up because we know that many people who monitor are largely unfunded volunteers and often have no umbrella organisation to support them. That means they have […]
Men plead guilty to poaching grouse in North Yorkshire
Three men pleaded guilty in Teesside Magistrates Court on 7 August 2023, charged with a number of poaching offences. The men were searched by police on moorland near Lockwood Beck in the North York Moors National Park on 29 January 2023 after a tip-off. Cleveland Police said: “Officers immediately attended the area and detained the […]
An eleven-year-old boy suffers life-changing injuries during a shoot
On 31 August an eleven-year-old boy was shot in a woodland in East Sussex. His life-changing injuries are a stark reminder of how dangerous the shooting industry can be. Sky News reported that: “During the incident, the boy suffered a serious, potentially life-changing wound to his hip and was airlifted to hospital in London, according […]
Protecting the Wild Equipment Fund #3: Hull Wildlife Protectors
Protect the Wild is working hard to empower people to protect British wildlife. In the Spring we began building a unique information resource to help tackle wildlife crime and acts of criminality that we called ‘Protectors of the Wild‘. ‘Protectors’ has now expanded to 35 pages and answers about 400 FAQs on everything from laws […]
Scotland snare ban: Join Chris Packham in making your voice heard
Chris Packham has joined animal rights charities to celebrate “a potential win for wildlife” as Scotland moves closer to banning snares. As we reported on 22 August, the Scottish government is asking for views on whether the use of snares should be “banned as part of new plans to protect vulnerable wildlife”. The consultation will […]
Scottish government consulting on snare ban and extended powers for SSPCA
The Scottish government is asking for views on whether the use of snares should be “banned as part of new plans to protect vulnerable wildlife” and whether inspectors from the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) “should be given extra legislative powers to investigate wildlife crime”. Both proposals are part of […]
Scottish Greens describe grouse shooting as ‘festival of violence’
The barbaric grouse shooting season began on 12 August, the ‘Inglorious 12th’. The Scottish Green Party has sent a clear message to gamekeepers and wealthy shooters that the blood sport is not welcome in Scotland. The Scottish Greens’ rural affairs minister, Ariane Burgess MSP, didn’t mince her words when she said: “There is nothing glorious […]
Reclaim Our Moors Walk 2023 (Moscar Moor)
On August 13th, the day after the Inglorious 12th (and a Sunday so no shooting was taking place), I joined a group of ‘Reclaim Our Moors’ protestors on a short hike from Redmires Reservoir near Sheffield up onto the notorious Moscar Moor. A grouse shooting estate, Moscar has become a national symbol of the public […]
Hen Harrier ‘brood meddling’ slammed by Wild Justice
The campaign group Wild Justice (run by Dr Mark Avery, a former Director of Conservation at the RSPB, Dr Ruth Tingay, who set up and runs the highly-influential Raptor Persecution UK (RPUK) blog, and Chris Packham, the most popular conservationist in the whole of the UK) has just published Meddling on the Moors, a new […]
OPINION: The grouse shooting industry must be shut down
Over the last two days we’ve laid out some of the less than ‘glorious’ facts about the grouse shooting industry. In our first post, ‘There’s nothing ‘glorious’ about killing grouse‘, we outlined how the 12th of August (the ‘Inglorious 12th’) marks the start of a key ‘season’ for the shooting industry, and that over the […]
OPINION: There’s nothing ‘glorious’ about killing grouse
The 12th of August (the ‘Inglorious 12th’) marks the start of a key ‘season’ for the shooting industry. During the next 121 days the industry will sell thousands of Red Grouse to shooters. It is in effect the start of the ‘Christmas shopping period’ for the shooting industry when it hopes to make money on […]
Defra cosies up to grouse shooting industry
Defra (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), the government department “responsible for improving and protecting the environment”, has announced the appointment of a grouse moor owner to what it describes as a ‘key role’. Heather Hancock (pictured above), a former Food Standards Agency chair and former Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Dales National Park […]
‘Moor’ bad news for grouse shooting in run up to Inglorious 12th
As we reported on July 22nd, United Utilities (UU), the largest corporate landowner in England, announced its decision to no longer renew grouse shooting leases on its moorland. The last of those leases will end in 2027, after which time UU (unless they bow to pressure from the shooting industry) will be out of the […]
BREAKING: United Utilities to end grouse shooting
As reported by Alex Thomson of Channel 4, “United Utilities, the largest corporate landowner in England, is pulling grouse shooting on its moorland by way of not renewing its leases when they come to an end. Its grouse shooting leases cover many high profile moorland landscapes, including the Forest of Bowland AONB, the Goyt Valley, […]
RSPB: The Economics of Driven Grouse Shooting Report
The RSPB (the “UK’s largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home and secure a healthy environment for wildlife’) recently published a report called ‘Driven Grouse Shooting – Assessing the economic and social impacts of future options for grouse moor management‘ Or did they? Curiously, this detailed and over 100-pages long report […]
Cat found nearly ‘cut in two’ after a snare wrapped around his stomach
When Harry arrived back at his home after five days, his return should have delighted Marion Brownlie. Instead, she was shocked. Harry, a farm cat living with Brownlie, had a deep welt across his abdomen. And it was the result of a snare. Brownlie lives in St Cyrus, Aberdeenshire, on Scotland’s eastern coast. Harry had […]
Natural England’s Tony Juniper: overseeing the devastation of England’s biodiversity
The chair of Natural England (the government’s adviser for the natural environment in England) has hypocritically argued that England “is going to have to work much harder” if it wants to meet biodiversity targets. In his role, Tony Juniper is actively responsible for the loss of biodiversity. The Tories’ biodiversity targets have already been called […]
The Animal Welfare Act 2006
The Animal Welfare Act 2006 The Animal Welfare Act 2006 (which came in to force in April 2007) overhauled the legal protection of vertebrate animals. It applies to actions taken on the land and all inland waters and estuaries in England and Wales. The Act introduced the notion of species-specific legislation and combined over twenty […]
Northumberland: Badger suffers excruciating death in snare
Another badger has died unnecessarily after getting caught in an illegal snare in Northumberland. The RSPCA was called out to the badger after receiving a call from the public. The charity said that the snare had become embedded in the creature’s neck and had to be cut out in three different places. The RSPCA’s Rachael […]
New footage shows the ‘untold suffering’ of legal traps on a notorious grouse shooting estate
Moorland Monitors has captured footage of a crow caught up and unnaturally twisted in a ‘clam trap’ on open access land in the Peak District. And it shows what one person can do with just a phone. Moorland Monitors shared phone-filmed footage showing two crows in two separate cages set next to each other. It […]
Avian Flu: RSPB calls for ban on bird releases by shooting industry
“To help limit the catastrophic spread of Avian Influenza, the RSPB is calling for an immediate moratorium on the release of captive-bred gamebirds and Mallards for shooting in the UK this year. The call is for the UK and devolved governments and the shooting industry to take a precautionary approach to limit the spread of […]
Paltry punishment for wealthy company that deliberately burnt moor
A company worth almost £20 million has pleaded guilty after it deliberately burnt swathes of moorland in the Peak District. Dunlin Ltd, which owns Midhope Moors, didn’t have a licence to set fire to the land but was fined just a paltry £2,645. Dunlin’s land agents, JM Osbourne Rural and Sporting, had initially applied for […]
“Sickened”: Hen Harrier had head pulled off while still alive
Natural England (whose useless scheme to boost populations of the rare Hen Harrier has been slammed repeatedly by conservationists) says it is “sickened by evidence of persecution” of Hen Harriers after a staggering twenty of the rare birds ‘went missing’ from areas managed for grouse shooting in northern England in the past year. Hen Harrier […]
Family cat found dead in garden, a snare around his neck
Tigger, a domestic cat, died after a snare caught him around the neck. He was found in his family’s neighbour’s garden. But the RSPCA believe he actually died elsewhere. Tigger’s body was found on 11 April in Netherhall, on the outskirts of Leicester. A snare had pulled tight around his neck. However, Leicestershire Live reported […]
‘Slow strangulation’ and ‘organ damage’: SnareWatch report shows the gruesome reality of snare use
Scottish animal welfare charity OneKind has released its 2022 SnareWatch Report, and it’s distressing reading. Snares are primarily used on foxes on bird-shooting estates in an attempt to stop the mammals from predating on birds such as pheasants and grouse. They are wire nooses that trap and hold the animal until someone comes and shoots […]
Rabbits and the Law
Rabbits and the Law Rabbits are not native to the UK (they are from the Iberian Peninsula originally) and despite being here for around two thousand years, they are considered ‘pests’ in law. Since the Pest Act 1954 (which was put forward in response to huge agricultural losses) land occupiers – unless they can establish […]
Natural Resources Wales and one-sided ‘compromise’
As Protect the Wild’s Glen Black outlined in a March 31st news post, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is asking the public for its thoughts on new regulations designed to licence the release of pheasants and partridges by the shooting industry. Glen wrote that we need to ‘keep our eyes on the prize’ and that ‘those […]
A Proper Ban on Hunting
A proper ban on hunting It has been almost two decades since the passing of the Hunting Act 2004, banning the hunting of wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales. But hunts continue to operate, creating havoc and breaking the law by chasing and killing wild mammals under the guise of ‘trail hunting’, using […]
Wales is holding a public consultation on licensing parts of the shooting industry
Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is asking the public for its thoughts on new regulation for releasing pheasants, partridges and other ‘non-native’ birds killed by the shooting industry. At present, there are regulations around the release of birds inside Wales’ sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs). However, beyond those areas, there is almost no regulatory oversight. […]
Cruelty Timeline
Cruelty Timeline Cruelty takes place all year round in the countryside. Snares and traps are being used in every month. Foxes are being shot and killed every day of the year. Someone, somewhere, will be breaking the law. Killing certain species of wildlife is legal though and here is a timeline showing when ‘seasons’ start […]
Trespass (to Land) and the Law
Trespass (to Land) and the Law In England and Wales, trespassing is entering – or putting property on – land that belongs to someone else, without their permission (technically “unjustifiable interference with land which is in the immediate and exclusive possession of another”) unless there is: some right of access for the public (for England […]
The CRoW Act 2000
The CRoW (Countryside and Rights of Way) Act 2000 The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act) covers England and Wales and gives a public right of access to land mapped as ‘open country’ (mountain, moor, heath and down) or mapped areas of registered common land shown on official registers kept by the […]
CAMPAIGN: End Hunting on MoD land
Yesterday Protect the Wild launched a new petition-based campaign and a new animation: End Hunting on MoD (Ministry of Defence) Land. Within two hours our social media posts had been viewed almost 50k times, and by midday this morning over 5000 people had already signed our petition to the MoD calling on them to stop […]
Anu: yet another Hen Harrier ‘disappears’
To quote the RSPB, “Hopes dashed for vanished Hen Harrier Anu, whose tag was found cut off after roosting on grouse moor”. Anu, a satellite tagged Hen Harrier, vanished after roosting near Upper Midhope in the Peak District National Park – on land managed for driven grouse shooting. RSPB Investigations Officers located the bird’s tag […]
A second illegal snare has been found wrapped around a badger near Colchester
A dead badger was found, “almost garrotted”, laying in a ditch near Colchester. It was a grim sight found by members of a local badger group. But it wasn’t the time first time that the group had visited the area due to reports of an illegally snared badger. North East Essex Badger Group said it […]
Foxes and the Law
Foxes and the Law The Red Fox (the only fox species found in the UK) has the largest natural distribution of any land mammal except human beings. The UK population is around 375,000, and perhaps one-third are resident in our towns and cities. Data suggests that up to 50 per cent of the UK’s fox […]
Snared badger disappears leaving only pool of blood
Essex Police are investigating after blood was found by a snare. A member of the public reported finding a badger trapped in the device. But by the time police arrived, the creature had gone. As local paper the Daily Gazette reported, the incident occurred on 25 February and involved a dog-walker finding a badger struggling […]
National Trust bans grouse shooting from a Peak District estate
The National Trust has announced it’s banning grouse shooting from 1,600 acres of its land in the Peak District. And it comes after the charity voiced concerns over the shooting industry’s “management techniques”. On 3 March, Sheffield paper The Star reported that the National Trust had chosen not to renew its relationship with the shooting […]
Woodcock petition debate: through the looking glass with the shooting lobby
On the 27th of February, Parliament debated petition 619615 ‘Limit the shooting season of Woodcock‘, which was launched by Wild Justice and signed by 107, 916 members of the public. The petition asked that the (so-called) shooting season for Woodcock, a species in serious decline here, should be moved back from 01 October (it starts […]