Why would anyone harm hen harriers if they posed no risk to the grouse shooting industry?
Also, moving chicks requires concern for the lives of hen harriers: the grouse-shooting industry has something to prove here.
But the first step has to come from the grouse-shooting industry: ie, a demonstrative willingness to abide by the the law.
The buzzard's robust health – and its appetite for pheasants – has brought the protected bird of prey into the sights of the shooting industry.
"I believe it is up to those figures within the shooting industry to help stamp out the killing of birds of prey, once and for all".
If he wants to be taken seriously as an advocate for conservation – rather than a good-hearted meddler – he must speak out against the grouse-shooting industry in Britain.
Mark Avery's Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands, also from Bloomsbury, is a powerful indictment of the grouse-shooting industry and its illegal shooting and propaganda war against the hen harrier.
As management of driven grouse moors intensifies, the shooting industry must take responsibility for the impact their industry has on biodiversity and the natural environment, RSPB chief executive Dr Mike Clarke will say.
The recovery of buzzards, which had been wiped out from large swaths of England in the 20th century, has been a rare conservation success – the shooting industry argues that buzzards are now common.
He was selling some byproducts of Britain's lucrative shooting industry (byproducts because the main product is "fun"): woodpigeon and 14 woodcock, their rapier-like beaks tucked inside their carcasses.
