The Biodiversity Crisis

[@Brucey865]

This needs to reach the masses and not just us who actively watch and support NGO!! Great video!

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

Thank you Sam, you can help by sharing it to your non-shooting friends

[@Brucey865]

@@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866 Have done 👍🏻

[@MichaelYarde]

This is bloody fantastic! It needs broadcast on mainstream TV!

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

Thank you Mike, you can help by sharing it with your non-shooting friends. We are investigating ways to get our TGS films on Amazon Prime

[@philipprint9510]

Brilliant! Well done to all involved.

[@alancross2826]

What a brilliant piece of work. Charlie needs to air this on Field Sports Channel no other TV channel will touch it as they are run by Packham and co. George Eustace has a new boss, yes its Mr Packham, just slipping the new licensing controls in by subterfuge without consultation and look at the mess its created. Carrie and the Goldsmiths need removing from no.10 or nothing will change. Well done all of you, keep putting it out there. Regards Alan.

[@BeautifulNaturalDramatic]

Interesting and practical take on contributing towards Biodiversity

[@markbateman703]

Brilliant video. Well done.

[@gamekeepingshorts9208]

Fantastic video. Well done everyone involved 👏🏻

[@mre.w.2850]

Excellent video

[@citizenpat1]

Greetings from Ireland. Excellent video, keep it up. The very same challenges apply here.

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

Thank you, it is a shame that all over the world we all face similar challenges when it comes to wildlife. If only the authorities would wake up and allow us to make the difference in the way we know we can

[@neilcowley6185]

Great informative video 👍

[@MKChase-uj9vx]

It's an uphill battle. It's easy for certain groups to sell the 'shooting/killing is bad' agenda, but conservation takes committed financial investment and this comes from the shooting fraternity, and from nowhere else. I shoot, but I also have feeders out for the songbirds and I bet I spend well over £100 each winter filling them, going out in the rain and the dark. I joined the NGO to support keepers, I am a member of BASC for similar supportive reasons. Everybody that shoots should be contributing to one or more of these organisations; the insurance is a 'bonus' it should not be the primary driver. As long as we can demonstrate to the government the financial benefit of our sport, the greater our voice will be. If our way of life is lost to history it will in no small part be due to a lack of engagement by shooters themselves. Keep up the good work fellas.

[@TonyPowell180]

I may be a non-shooting townie, but I know knowledgeable guys n gals from the countryside when I see or talk to them. Engage as much you can with the public face-to-face, bring people onto your shoots, show them your thorough knowledge of the environment and your daily conservation efforts. Bird surveying is my bag, and most of the farmed areas with shooting interests are alive with wildlife. Who else can claim dozens of breeding warblers such as Whitethroats and Blackcaps? Our British countryside's Lapwings and Stone-curlews now almost solely breed on farmsteads with predator controls in place. Who else puts five to eight tonnes of bird food out "on the ground" in the bird-feeding hungry gap? Other than those with vested interests in shooting and making our countryside thrive with wildlife, who delivers proper and effective conservation? Noone but those folks "on the ground with dirt under their fingernails". Gather this evidence through facts, not Fiction and then perhaps you can all slowly be the movers and shakers all UK conservationists will talk about well into the future, I damn well know that you should be!

[@theotheseaeagle]

I’m from the countryside, but killing hundreds predators is not an ideal way of maintaining an ecosystem. Of course, in some cases, predatory animals *do* need controlling, but there are many invasive predators (American mink, terrapins, American bullfrogs, grey squirrels just to name a few) yet nothing ever gets said about them! People who shoot are too focused on our *native* predators which have been in the ecosystem and maintaining it for thousands if not millions of years before humans came to our shores, that they don’t bother with actual troublesome species

[@theotheseaeagle]

Lapwings and Stone curlews only breed on farms with suitable habitat. The main cause for their declines is because of changes in farming practices. For example, corn crakes have declined drastically because farmers now cut crops from the outside rather than the middle, trapping the corn crakes and their chicks causing them to be blended up and killed. Not to mention, gamekeepers have also caused the extinctions of many different species, such as white tailed eagles, hen harriers, golden eagles and very nearly wiped out ravens

[@TonyPowell180]

@@theotheseaeagle Ah, but yes, when you create a habitat without predator controls (namely involving a select few Crows and Foxes), you get net losses of Natural capital. A ground-nesting bird will never seek out a habitat to breed, without first checking for the neighbourhood's enemies at the gate or hedge and just how many might be lurking there. And yes, let's not forget the Gamekeepers who've collectively created habitats covering thousands of acres, kept many millions of songbirds alive and kept our countryside viably economic. As I said, I don't shoot or hunt, but I love a bit of keepered countryside, as close to a nature reserve as you'll ever witness. I agree with the Corncrake scenario, and more can be done along those lines for Corn Buntings and others.

[@TonyPowell180]

@@theotheseaeagle, They don't bother about the actual troublesome species. One estate I work on regularly culls 1400 Grey Squirrels annually, and its hectarage (land coverage) is not noteworthy. Its passion for creating a healthy environment for trees, bees and birds and back again is ENORMOUS. Let's not assume anything is this game, please, especially as such opinions can be stated as HARD FACTS in the newspapers and media at large.

[@nickhorten97]

Excellent video..

[@paulreynolds9003]

Great video but it’s sad to see the situation we are in at the moment. But it’s not the only thing that do gooders have pocked there nose in and made things worse.

[@MajorT0m]

It is ironic and very sad that it is the humans who can't reach a consensus about these matters in these increasingly alarming times. That's when humans work at their best, when we have a variety of folks with different skills and outlooks working together as a team, in this case to preserve the environment we all love. We are all good at different things and these differences should allow us to form strong bonds and be able to achieve anything. Instead everybody seems to obsess about changing everybody else's mind into one way of thinking. I don't see how that can make us stronger or more adaptable to life's challenges.

[@tadblackington1676]

Predators are biodiversity too. A few eagles, buzzards, falcons and lynx would keep crows, gulls and foxes limited in there number/impact.

[@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866]

It is estimated there are over 250,000 buzzards in the UK as well as many "falcons" such as goshawk, sparrow Hawk, perigrine etc all of which do not impact on crow numbers. Lynx would have no impact at all but would quite probably cause more problems for rare ground nesting birds.

[@neil5719]

Are you for real? crows mob birds of prey and the birds of prey do nothing about it so how are they going to control crows. there are only one thing that controls crows, gulls and foxes, and that's humans.

[@theotheseaeagle]

@@nationalgamekeepersorganis9866 goshawks and sparrowhawks aren’t falcons. Lynx rarely hunt ground nesting birds, they much prefer things like rabbits, deer and hares. Do they hunt birds? Occasionally yes, but they don’t hunt them enough to have a significant impact on their populations. Buzzards were almost wiped out across the UK, because of heavy culling by gamekeepers who wanted to get an unnaturally high number of game birds to shoot. Sparrowhawks and goshawks love to feed on corvids, they are their natural prey, the same goes for buzzards, I’ve seen them flying off with nestling carrion crows and jackdaws before. The whole reason we are in this mess to begin with is because people insist on culling predators on mass. We’ve already lost our wolves, lynx and our wildcats, we almost lost our otters although thankfully they are making a comeback and this all because of over hunting. If you really want to help all these rare species, then go build new habitats for them. You can’t expect them to bounce back just by shooting crows and foxes, they require suitable habitat in order to spread, and join up with neighbouring populations

[@thehill1946]

A first class piece. It has long been my argument that if we wish to protect our environment, and so, our fieldsports, it is vital that we abandon our claims to our sporting Rights and our traditional Heritage, and that we promote the positives, that we point out that the near clown-like attempts at conservation which are promoted by those with political intentions are revealed for what they are. There is a simple fact; the environment which is provided and which gives the ideal platform for all wildlife to prosper, from the invertebrates which are the very start of the food chain, up to and including the alpha-predators, arrives by the route of those lands which are influenced by and set aside for the guiding influence of fieldsports.

[@theotheseaeagle]

If gamekeepers are doing so much to help with the biodiversity crisis then why is our wildlife still declining? And how come many other conservation projects have helped restore and save many species from the brink? I’ve never heard of any species being saved by gamekeepers, but I know of many conservation organisations saving critically endangered species like dormice as well as reintroducing species such as red kites and white tailed eagles which believe it or not were wiped out by gamekeepers in the first place. Not to mention all the non target species that get caught in traps such as snares or get poisoned on grouse moors (many of which you seem to want to protect, but then end up killing because they get caught in your traps).