• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Virtue-Signalling Shooting Ban on Moorland Owned by Woke Water Company Will be an Environmental Disaster

by Toby Young
12 August 2023 11:00 AM

The country’s largest corporate landowner, United Utilities, announced last week, just days before the start of the shooting season, that it will not renew shooting licenses on its land. One of the many catastrophic consequences of this decision is that it will dramatically increase the risk of wild fires. The Telegraph has more.

“I dread to think what will happen if we are not here,” Andrew Chadwick said as he looked out across the purple and green patchwork of moorland he manages. “It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

He has been a gamekeeper in the Peak District for the last 37 years, just as his father was before him. But his post could soon be lost as the water company that owns the land is effectively banning shooting.

United Utilities (UU), the country’s largest corporate landowner, announced just weeks before Saturday’s Glorious Twelfth that it will not be renewing shooting licences on its land.

The company has in recent years focused on rewilding, and it has said it will allow it to “accelerate the restoration and rewetting of our peatlands”.

“I just don’t think that the people who have made this decision know what we do up here or understand the moors,” Mr. Chadwick said. “I think that they will regret the decision.”

This week he has been counting the grouse on Peak Naze moor, near the town of Glossop, using a pack of English setters who race through the heather to sniff out the cubbies.

On a good year, the syndicate that leases the moor can get six days shooting. They count the numbers so that they can ensure that breeding pairs and a healthy population survives the season.

Because the numbers are low, largely due to the heatwave early in the season which killed off their food, the syndicate will only get one day’s shooting this year.

But Mr Chadwick will still manage the moor for the other 364 days, on call day and night.

“I either wanted to play for Manchester United or become a gamekeeper, it was my dream job,” he jokes.

His tasks include cutting the heather to create patches which both act as a firebreak and create a habitat for the birds. He monitors pests and disease and – where necessary – removes heather to stop the spread and controls predators and vermin, including foxes.

As a result of the management, birds including curlews, peregrine falcons, lapwing, golden plover, oystercatchers and marlin are thriving, and the moor is among the top in the country for bird conservation.

David Naylor, the neighbouring farmer who grazes his sheep on the Peak Naze, said that he has seen subsidies for conservation come and go. When he took over the farm in 1988 there was money available for restoring the heather and an insistence on controlled burning, which is now all but banned.

“Rewilding seems to be the latest fashion, but there is no common sense in it at all,” he told the Telegraph. “People always seem to be chasing the latest subsidies. Between us tenant grazers who keep stock on the moors and the shooting people we keep the balance.

“There have been generations of work to get the moors to where they are now. By the time they realise what a foolish carry-on rewilding is it could take years – generations – to get it back. If you can get it back.

“It is supposed to be about conservation, but the birds will disappear, the sheep will disappear. All they will rewild is vermin and within five years there will be a big fire up there.”

Fire prevention is one of Mr Chadwick’s main roles, reported shoot tenant Richard May, a local farmer, who said that in the summer he prays every night when he goes to bed that the moor will not be set ablaze.

He has had a lease to shoot on Peak Naze since 2009. Since then, there has not been a single fire. By comparison, two neighbouring moors not managed for shooting have seen 13 fires over the same period.

As we stood on the peak, the edge of the shoot’s two and a half thousand acres dominates most of the horizon, and in the distance to the west you can see the skyscrapers of Manchester.

Also visible is Saddleworth Moor, where a fire in 2018 burned for three weeks, saw parts of Manchester evacuated and released half a million tons of carbon from the peat.

Researchers from the University of Leeds have since estimated that it exposed 4.5 million people across the northwest of England to dangerous levels of pollution and will increase premature deaths by 165%.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Glorious TwelfthPeak DistrictRewildingShootingUnited Utilities

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Scientist Admits to Spreading Alarm About Climate Change: “It’s a Manufactured Consensus”

Next Post

Anger at NHS Guidance That Lets Patients Who ‘Temporarily’ Identify as Female Share Single-Sex NHS Spaces

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic EP.37: David Frost on Starmer’s EU Surrender, James Price on Broken Britain and David Shipley on Lucy Connolly’s Failed Appeal

by Richard Eldred
23 May 2025
3

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Doctor Who Star Ncuti Gatwa “Axed” and BBC Show to be “Put on Pause” Amid Falling Ratings and Woke Storylines

23 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

23 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

23 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

Spanish Scientists “Were Experimenting with How Far They Could Push Renewable Energy” Before Countrywide Blackout

23 May 2025
by Will Jones

UK Welcomes South African Activist Who Chants About Killing White Farmers But Excludes French Philosopher Concerned About Demographic Change

22 May 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

39

Doctor Who Star Ncuti Gatwa “Axed” and BBC Show to be “Put on Pause” Amid Falling Ratings and Woke Storylines

25

News Round-Up

25

Trump Slaps 50% Tariffs on EU – as He Tells Starmer to Get Drilling for Oil

24

We Were Too Polite to Stop the Woke Takeover

20

We Were Too Polite to Stop the Woke Takeover

23 May 2025
by Mary Gilleece

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

23 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

Starmer Has No Intention of Cutting Immigration

22 May 2025
by Joe Baron

UK Welcomes South African Activist Who Chants About Killing White Farmers But Excludes French Philosopher Concerned About Demographic Change

22 May 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The BBC’s Mark Poynting Shows How to Spread Climate Alarm

22 May 2025
by Chris Morrison

POSTS BY DATE

August 2023
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Jul   Sep »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

August 2023
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Jul   Sep »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Doctor Who Star Ncuti Gatwa “Axed” and BBC Show to be “Put on Pause” Amid Falling Ratings and Woke Storylines

23 May 2025
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

23 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

23 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

Spanish Scientists “Were Experimenting with How Far They Could Push Renewable Energy” Before Countrywide Blackout

23 May 2025
by Will Jones

UK Welcomes South African Activist Who Chants About Killing White Farmers But Excludes French Philosopher Concerned About Demographic Change

22 May 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

39

Doctor Who Star Ncuti Gatwa “Axed” and BBC Show to be “Put on Pause” Amid Falling Ratings and Woke Storylines

25

News Round-Up

25

Trump Slaps 50% Tariffs on EU – as He Tells Starmer to Get Drilling for Oil

24

We Were Too Polite to Stop the Woke Takeover

20

We Were Too Polite to Stop the Woke Takeover

23 May 2025
by Mary Gilleece

The Tweets Cited by the Judge to ‘Prove’ Lucy Connolly is “Racist” Do Nothing of the Sort

23 May 2025
by Laurie Wastell

Starmer Has No Intention of Cutting Immigration

22 May 2025
by Joe Baron

UK Welcomes South African Activist Who Chants About Killing White Farmers But Excludes French Philosopher Concerned About Demographic Change

22 May 2025
by C.J. Strachan

The BBC’s Mark Poynting Shows How to Spread Climate Alarm

22 May 2025
by Chris Morrison

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences