Shit Will I thought sloper had the monopoly on shit ridiculous threads designed to get 5 responses?
Andy the moors would be access land anyway so nothing would happen to the footpaths.
Pretty sure that the shooting pays for the immaculate paving up there.
oooh touchy! Did your secretary forget to bring you your second brandy at lunchtime?I'd question your ability in arguing any environmental points if you think that the moorland would just stop at 'scrub and birch' and that somehow this would represent less diversity than is currently present on the moors.Which particular high horse do you think I'm sat on mate?
Quote from: andyd on August 12, 2014, 03:57:48 pmPretty sure that the shooting pays for the immaculate paving up there. The works were paid for by the YDNP to help manage peat erosion, so taxes and grannies parking at Grassington paid for them!
I'd say (without any real knowledge, ahem, shirley shome mistake) that burning is good for the environment as otherwise there would be a reversion to scrub & birch and doesn't lead to a mono culture, you also get bilberry and other grasses etc.
The lack of Kites in upland areas is probably due to their near extinction (not sure of the cause) and then the spread from the areas of re introduction, I've seen Kites in Yorkshire and a Goshawk/Harrier in Derbyshire (not 100% but one or t'other)
lack of access, WTF? I can't see this being an issue at all.
off the main paths you see traps with depressing frequency.... The keepers are twats and one can only assume the landowners are utterly stupid or approve of this behaviour (possibly both).
The peat is only there because our (very old) ancestors chopped down all the trees somewhere between 5-8 thousand years ago...
Quote from: tomtom on August 12, 2014, 07:35:55 pmThe peat is only there because our (very old) ancestors chopped down all the trees somewhere between 5-8 thousand years ago... Are you suggesting that neolithic deforestation caused the growth of upland peat, if so what is your evidence. There are plenty of places where the growth of peat killed off the trees (hence all so called bog oak). Peat growth may be linked to a down turn (wetting and cooling) of the climate which effected all of the NE atlantic region not just the deforested areas. Such a large scale regional change is more likely to be driven by changes in the rate of meridional overturning in the north atlantic than by pre industrial deforestation
IMO shooting grouse is only 'fine' in relation to all the other animals killed for human amusement/consumption, viewed on its own it's as much of a ridiculous past time as foxhunting, or most other forms of hunting TBH. If they used bow and arrow so it was somewhat traditional and there was a modicum of skill involved then it may be slightly more understandable.
Regards the landscape, I'd love to see the moors allowed to grow as they wish, I assume large areas would stay as heather due to the soil types, etc. but it would be interesting to see the development over the years.
Now we're getting somewhere. So could we sum up the UKB Hive Mind point of view as being that:Grouse shooting is fine, provided the keepers don't trap or poison raptors.
Our whole countryside and our perceptions of it are pretty fucked up really. It 'should' be a mixture of scrub and forest (of varying types - depending on altitude, climate and geology roughly..). Grazing - and managed moorland like Grouse stuff keeps it how it is... Of course the 'should' is all dependant upon our perception - and we tend to think pretty green fields with sheep in are what our countryside should look like.
Maintaining the land in its current state is a good thing. We like the cultural landscape that we have.