Daily Mail - 13.08.2019

Page 14 Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Continued from Page 13

COUNTRYSIDE groups yester-

day dismissed Labour’s calls for a

review of grouse shooting as a

‘thinly veiled political attack’.
The party has claimed the financial
benefits of hunting grouse are out-
weighed by the environmental cost.
Draining moors in preparation for the
shooting season, which began yesterday
on the ‘Glorious 12th’ of August, destroys
plantlife and wildlife, Labour argues.
The party added that ‘simulated shoot-
ing and wildlife tourism’ could replace
grouse hunting.
But the Countryside Alliance has said it
was ‘extraordinary’ that Labour had
launched a ‘thinly veiled political attack
on grouse shooting’ during ‘the present
political turmoil’.
It added an independent review would
be welcomed as it would highlight the
benefits of shooting.
Shadow environment secretary Sue
Hayman said: ‘The costs of grouse shoot-
ing on our environment and wildlife need
to be properly weighed up against the
benefit of landowners profiting from
shooting parties.
‘For too long the Tories have bent the
knee to landowners and it’s our environ-
ment and our people who pay the price.
‘There are viable alternatives to grouse
shooting such as simulated shooting and

By Colin Fernandez

Environment Correspondent

THAT BACKFIRED!

As Labour gets roasting from countryside

groups over its war on grouse shooting...

wildlife tourism. The time has

come for a proper review.’

Burning heather on grouse

moors releases 260,000 tonnes

of the greenhouse gas carbon

dioxide into the atmosphere,

according to the Committee on

Climate Change, the Govern-

ment’s advisory body.

Conservationists also claim

mountain hares and wild birds

such as hen harriers, red kites

and golden eagles are killed

illegally to protect grouse.

But Adrian Blackmore, the

Countryside Alliance’s director

of shooting, said: ‘Those with

any knowledge of grouse shoot-

ing and its associated manage-

ment will know some of the

claims being made by Labour

are nonsense. If an independ-

ent review would help increase

Labour’s understanding of its

considerable environmental,

economic and social benefits,

then it should be welcomed.’

Mr Blackmore said 70 per cent

of England’s upland Sites of

under EU wildlife directives.

Duncan Thomas, a regional

director at the British Associa-

tion for Shooting and Conser-

vation, said he was confident

any review would show the ben-

efits of a well-run grouse moor.

‘Grouse moors are biodiverse

and the shoots create vital

employment in isolated rural

areas,’ he added.

Amanda Anderson, director

of the Moorland Association,

told Radio 4’s Today pro-

gramme: ‘Grouse moor man-

agement is a friend of the envi-

ronment, not the enemy.

‘Seventy-five per cent of the

heather moorland of the world

is in Britain. It provides food for

birds of prey when managed for

grouse shooting, the manage-

ment prevents wildfires.

‘The abundance of breeding

waders is bucking the trends

elsewhere. The management

also supports rural businesses.’

Grouse moors cover around

550,000 acres in England and

Scotland. Officials said protect-

ing moorland and the hen har-

rier were government priorities.

Driven grouse shooting

involves a row of ‘beaters’ walk-

ing and pushing the birds

towards a line of shooters

concealed in sunken butts.

Labour also said that the ten

largest English grouse moors

were paid more than £3million

in farm subsidies last year.

Comment – Page 16

‘Friend of the

environment’

How conservation

experts are

contradicting

Corbynites

Queen’s estate cancels shoot

after bird numbers decline

IT IS a long-held tradition in the

royal calendar on the Queen’s

50,000-acre Scottish estate.

But grouse shooting has been

cancelled at Balmoral this year

due to a fall in bird numbers.

Yesterday was the Glorious

Twelfth – the start of the grouse

hunting season on August 12.

Shooting grouse is relished by

the Royal Family on their sum-

mer holidays at Balmoral but

heavy snowfall at the end of last

year – followed by a dry and

humid start to this summer – has

reduced game bird breeding.

An estate source said: ‘Grouse

numbers go up and down but

this year they have plummeted.

‘There probably will be no

grouse shooting on Balmoral

this season. It’s very disappoint-

ing. There is still [deer] stalking.’

Other popular activities at Bal-

moral include horse-riding,

picnics and country walks.

One person who may not be

disappointed is the Duchess of

Sussex, who is no shooting fan.

But Meghan did attend a

lunch following a pheasant

shoot at the Queen’s estate in

Sandringham, Norfolk, which

scotched rumours she had

banned her husband Prince

Harry from shooting.

By Sami Quadri

and Colin Fernandez

Target:

One of

the birds

LABOUR claims about grouse shooting

have been rebutted by the Countryside

Alliance and British Association for

Shooting and Conservation:

LABOUR CLAIM: Grouse moors –

covering 550,000 acres of England

and Scotland – are drained for

shooting, destroying huge swathes of

plantlife and killing many animals.

REBUTTAL: Moors are not drained

each year for the shooting season –

moors were drained with government

money in the 1970s but have been pro-

gressively re-wetted with drains being

blocked for the last two decades.

CLAIM: Moors are burned to ready

them for shooting, increasing the

likelihood of wildfires and flooding.

REBUTTAL: Controlled burning

prevents wildfires by reducing the ‘fuel’

available to them and creating fire

breaks.

CLAIM: In preparation for grouse

shooting, protected hen harriers

a r e o f t e n illegally culled.

REBUTTAL: Illegal killing is only one

factor in the decline of hen harriers.

Other factors include wildfire,

predators, lack of food, poor weather

and infertility.

CLAIM: Mountain hares are killed

on grouse moors.

REBUTTAL: Mountain hares are

culled to protect trees and populations

are stable in areas of well-managed

grouse moors.

Sport: Kate Middleton

shabby street with multi-occupation houses.

It has a couple of drinking clubs where, after

dark, girls of the night pick up customers,

charging £20, on a corner next to pizza and

kebab shops. It is the sort of place where

‘cuckooing’ goes on and drug-runners from

London can find customers easily when they

step off the trains.

At a property here in February, police

arrested five men and found numerous

bags of heroin, drug paraphernalia, a knife

and a crossbow. While officers were search-

ing the place, a boy of 17 turned up sud-

denly, carrying a weapon. It was a success-

ful raid by police trying to stop the violence

and misery caused by county lines.

Few know of this misery more than Joy

Brealey, who runs a thriving picture fram-

ing factory and shop in Bedford selling all

over Britain. Last year, her nephew Michael

died with different drugs in his body.

The 44-year-old was living with his

mother in a smart part of the town. He was

found dead in his bed at around one in the

afternoon after having gone out in the

middle of the night. He had answered a

message on his phone, found by his family

afterwards, which said ‘I’ve got a nice mix

of stuff for you here, Michael. Come over.’

His aunt, Joy, says that after his death

his family found his three mobile phones

with ‘practically every drug-dealer in Bed-

ford on’. She has since discovered that the

dealer who sold Michael drugs that night

was just 19 years old, and believes that

among his sidekicks was a boy of 13.

After Michael’s death, she alerted the

police about all his phones and wrote to a

police hotline on Facebook where officers

were appealing for information. She was to

be disappointed. Now she complains that

the three phones have never been looked

at by the police, who told her to ‘pop them

in when you are passing’.

Michael’s story is a telling example of the

lethal drug culture in Bedford. His younger

brother, Tom, also died of drugs and alco-

hol problems in the town, aged 27. The

boys’ father, Mick Higginson, wiped tears

from his eyes while telling us about his lost

sons as he sat with his supermarket worker

partner, Ange Randall.

S

HE said: ‘Drugs here have become

the norm. In the park nearby, you

can see dealers meeting buyers, who

are black, white, all classes and all

ages. I have watched the hand-over. It’s

done in a second.’

After Michael’s death, Ange also wrote a

Facebook message to the police hotline. It

said: ‘We feel let down by the system. We

are good, hard-working, tax-paying people

who have been robbed of a beautiful per-

son from our family. We are left picking up

the broken pieces of our lives, while the

scum walk free to do it all over again.’

She and Mick, 67, agree it was Michael

falling in with the wrong crowd that led

him into drugs. After leaving school, he

worked at his aunt’s picture framing fac-

tory but gave up the job because he began

being late for work or not turning up.

His descent into anti-social problems

started aged 16 or 17 when, with friends,

he began sniffing aerosols in the garage.

His delivery driver dad, who came to Bed-

ford from Lancashire and is now retired,

says that from aerosols it was cannabis

and then hard drugs including heroin.

Drugs took over the life of his son, who he

once hoped might become a historian.

Michael did go on a rehab programme

and exchanged heroin for methadone.

With his life getting back on track, he was

given a housing association flat in Bedford

of his own. All went well, for a while.

Then the drug dealers found him and, as

Mick and Ange explain, they never let go.

They kept visiting him on any excuse.

They called in late at night for a cup of tea.

They offered Michael drugs again. Then

they moved in and turned his flat into a

drug den, supplying him and other users.

It was a classic ‘cuckooing’ operation.

Bills went unpaid and the place was a

mess. A few years ago, Michael moved to

his mother’s home where he was later to

be found dead. But he could never really

escape the drug gangs. His mobile phone

would ring and it was a dealer or, perhaps,

a county lines runner offering him heroin

or cocaine or anything he wanted.

Michael’s inquest report says, in under-

stated language, it was drug-related. And

now, at Mick and Ange’s home, there is a

small polished wood box on the shelf in

the sitting room. It contains the ashes of

both Michael and Tom. As their father

Mick said of his sons: ‘I could not bear to

bury them in the earth of Bedford, the

town that killed them, thanks to drugs.’

Special Scientific Interest are

managed grouse moors.

More than 40 per cent of

grouse moors are designated as

Special Protection Areas for

rare birds and Special Areas of

Conservation for rare vegeta-

tion, the highest designations