No Room for Doubt

That the wildlife trust is hand in glove with the shooting industry is hardly disputable. All the propaganda on moorland leaves no room for doubt. Nobody should allow themselves to be taken in by the occasional muted criticism. The big money landowners are quite happy to live with that. In the case of Sheffield Wildlife Trust they do not even have the talent to disguise it very well.

The notice referred to in the previous post is now slightly changed and it incorporates a picture of a red grouse, bred to satisfy the appetites of investment bankers anxious to spend their bonuses on a bit of bang-bang on the moors. And the red grouse is really what SWT want to see breeding here so that the young birds can fly off into parts of the Derbyshire grouse moors and get shot after 12th August.

We should remember that some years ago SWT affected being terribly upset to hear people say that they wanted to stop dog walkers from exercising their dogs off lead. Not true at all was their response. "We know that's what people like to do. How could you so misrepresent us?" they wailed indignantly.

The Moorland Association representative in the Peak District tried to get the Peak Local Access Forum to ban dogs completely from all SSSIs. I was obliged to write a lengthy letter explaining the absurdity of the idea. It's even more absurd here when you realise that the SSSIs are just drawn lines on a map with the justifications worked out clumsily afterwards!!