Linklater on Langholm: fake facts from a ‘respected journalist’

Following the recent news that the Langholm Moor Demonstration Project (‘Langholm 2’) was winding down prematurely (see here), as predicted it hasn’t taken long for those within the grouse-shooting industry to start claiming it a massive failure.

On Saturday (2nd April), ‘respected journalist’ Magnus Linklater had an article about Langholm 2 published in The Times (see here for paywall version and here for free copy). The inverted commas around ‘respected journalist’ are used deliberately because not everyone agrees with this credibility rating, based on Linklater’s previous musings on raptors and grouse moors (e.g. see here, here and here).

This latest article is littered with what we’ll politely call fake facts; a common theme from Linklater. Either this ‘respected journalist’ has just made stuff up (again), or he hasn’t done the research you might expect from such a feted correspondent (and editor!).

Here are just some of those fake facts.

Linklater says: “Grouse numbers have declined to an unsustainable level” and “There are no longer enough grouse to justify commercial shooting” and “Grouse numbers have never sufficiently recovered” and “Although grouse numbers did revive from their previous low level, there were never enough to justify letting the moor for driven grouse shoots“.

So, four times in this article Linklater mentions that there aren’t enough red grouse to shoot at Langholm. It’s clearly a point he wants to drive home to the reader, but it’s just not true. As we, and others, have previously commented, the red grouse population at Langholm has recovered sufficiently, to a density which previously supported driven grouse shooting activity on this moor (see here, here, here).

Linklater says: “There are currently 14 hen harrier nests on the moor“.

Really? On 2nd April? That would be extraordinary. Blimey, climate change has really kicked in. Or, Linklater is clumsily using last year’s hen harrier breeding status and applying it to this year. But wait! There weren’t 14 hen harrier nests at Langholm in 2015. There were eight, and six of those produced fledglings. How about in 2014? There were 12 hen harrier nests in that year (the highest recorded during the Langholm 2 project) and of those, 10 nests produced fledglings. So from where has Linklater conjured up the “current 14 hen harrier nests“? Has he just made it up?

Linklater says: “More than 100 [hen harrier] pairs were fledged“.

Er, if that were true it would mean that more than 200 birds had fledged during the Langholm 2 project. Again, untrue. More than 100 individuals have fledged – half the number Linklater is claiming. It could be a simple slip of the keyboard or it could be that Linklater wants to give the impression of a moor ‘plagued’ by hen harriers. Note his phrase “uncontrolled birds of prey” earlier in the article and pair it with his repeated referral to a (supposed) lack of red grouse and it becomes apparent what he’s trying to do here.

Linklater says (when describing the results of the earlier Langholm 1 project): “Harriers multiplied until there were more than 20 pairs, and grouse became virtually extinct“.

If there were “more than” 20 pairs, why not give the exact number? Could it be that there weren’t “more than” 20 pairs after Langholm 1? Could it be that there were actually 20, which, incidentally, just happened to coincide with a peak in the cyclical vole population? Why exaggerate? Surely not to try and create an impression that there were more hen harriers than there actually were?

And what’s this about red grouse becoming “virtually extinct“?! This is made up nonsense of the highest order. Red grouse didn’t become ‘virtually extinct’ after Langholm 1. What actually happened was that raptor predation reduced the autumn grouse abundance by 50%. In other words, the ‘surplus’ birds from an artificially-high red grouse population were no longer available to be shot. The red grouse population (and the hen harrier population) dropped back down to what some would call ‘normal’ (natural) densities. That’s a very, very, very different scenario from becoming ‘virtually extinct’.

Perhaps, if you were a grouse moor owner like Linklater (well, he, his wife and their lawyer are trustees of a Trust that owns a grouse moor), you might consider the red grouse population ‘virtually extinct’ because, for all intents and purposes, if there aren’t enough to shoot then they might as well, from the grouse moor owner’s perspective, be ‘virtually extinct’.

Linklater uses two quotes just to ram home the point to any reader who hasn’t yet caught on to his notion that hen harriers need sorting out (legally, of course). The first is from Teresa Dent of the GWCT (an organisation known to promote illegal activities as ‘best practice’ – see here). She says:

“There is a lot of work to do…..to find solutions to the conflict between hen harriers and red grouse that can be applied elsewhere“.

Oh, so no mention of the successful use of diversionary feeding of hen harriers during the Langholm 2 project, which has shown that the proportion of red grouse in the diet of diversionary-fed hen harriers was a negligible 0-4% (see here)? How strange. And by the way, Teresa, the conflict isn’t ‘between hen harriers and red grouse’ – it’s between hen harriers and driven grouse shooting; hen harriers and red grouse have survived together for thousands of years, duh!

The final quote is from someone associated with the Langholm 2 project but who prefers to remain anonymous:

“If you want ground-nesting birds, including hen harriers, then you need moors to be managed [by game keepers]. The success of the harriers at Langholm has come about because of intensive and expensive management. Unfortunately, the losers are the grouse“.

Actually, the success of the hen harriers at Langholm has come about because the keepers haven’t been allowed to illegally kill them.

Here’s one worthwhile way of responding to ‘respected journalist’ Linklater’s article: Please sign the petition to ban driven grouse shooting HERE