Action for Wildlife Day 2024

Fieldsports Channel

It's where Wild Justice founders Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay get together to complain about grouseshooting to an audience. Formerly Hen Harrier Day, now called Action for Wildlife Day, the  2024 event took place at Carsington Water, Derbyshire. this year, it extended its brief from anti-grouseshooting to include Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and Protect the Wild.  For the full story, visit https://fieldsportschannel.tv/actionforwildlife2024

Transcript

00:00What began ten years ago as Hen Harrier Day is now called Action for Wildlife Day, widening

00:10the scope of the content. Like the RSPB now calling itself Nature's Voice, it's more about

00:16looks than action. Among the advertised stalls are the darlings of the orange paint industry,

00:22Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. Wild Justice founding member Chris Packham spent

00:28most of his time on stage talking about catastrophic climate change.

00:33You might be thinking, OK, what have Just Stop Oil got to do with this meeting which

00:38is principally about biodiversity and protecting our wildlife? Well, there won't be any wildlife

00:43if the planet's on fire. So please, if you have time, will you welcome these people and

00:55sign the petition that they have, because unless we retain that right for peaceful protest

01:01as part of our portfolio that we need for change, then I think we're in deep trouble.

01:07And when we launch our petition to ban driven grouse shooting, not licence it, but ban it,

01:13please think about signing that.

01:15As usual, the event is timed to go alongside the glorious 12th August, the opening of the

01:20grouse season in the UK. The Wild Justice team hailed the grouse shoot licensing system

01:25recently introduced in Scotland as the first step to an outright ban.

01:29The reason that that has all happened in Scotland isn't actually because the case is any stronger

01:35in Scotland. I think it's slightly weaker. It's very strong, but it's slightly weaker.

01:40It's because there's been a different party in government, one that was open to the idea

01:47of radical change. Do you remember the Conservatives? They've been around for quite a long time.

01:54They were not in favour of radical change on this subject. But now we've got Labour

01:59government. Well, I'm not sure it's going to be that different, but it is a new opportunity

02:06to get radical change. I would still like to see a ban on driven grouse shooting, not

02:13some tidying up of the rules, but a ban.

02:17So BASC have been opposed to the grouse war licensing ever since it was first proposed,

02:22but they're arguing that if you get caught killing a badger or using dogs to hunt foxes

02:29on your land, that's not fair. Can you imagine not only thinking that, but writing it in

02:38a newspaper column?

02:40Other speakers included Labour MP Olivia Blake, RSPB investigator Mark Thomas and members

02:44of Protect the Wild, formerly known as Keep the Ban. Under their old name, their focus

02:50was hunting with hounds. Now they've expanded their targets to everyone remotely connected

02:56to hunting, shooting and badger culls.

02:59It's disgusting what's going on. We want to shut down the shooting industry as fast as

03:04we possibly can. We're going to be doing so much more work over the coming years, including

03:09a huge undercover piece of work, which I probably shouldn't even be saying that we're doing.

03:14As reported on Fieldsports News, Protect the Wild is creating a list of companies. It says

03:20are involved in hunting or shooting. Called bloodbusiness.info, it describes the website

03:26as an ethical TripAdvisor and launched it at the end of July.

03:30I'm at risk of being sued here by both TripAdvisor and Ethical Consumer. But in a sense, our

03:37site is going to be a mix of TripAdvisor and Ethical Consumer. If you're going somewhere

03:44and you want to, you want to know the pub you're about to go into or the hotel you're

03:48about to go to or the village store or you've got a wedding and you want to check whether

03:52the photographer you're about to hire is connected with hunting and shooting. One day they will

03:58be on our site.

04:01It has been a tough few years for wild justice. It hasn't had a major success since its legal

04:07action against the government over general licences in 2019. Convictions for raptor persecution

04:13are at historic lows and thanks to the government's brood management scheme run as a partnership

04:18between Grouse Keepers and Natural England without the help of the RSPB, hen harrier

04:22numbers are on the up. Wild justice still has its faithful and it remains a threat to

04:28conservation and wildlife management.

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