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| credit: The Independent |
UK's minister of wildlife owns a grouse moor in Scotland and a pheasant hunt in Berkshire as well as
being a millionaire landowner as the great, great grandson of Lord Salisbury
[photo, right]. He has been criticized as "the gamekeepers friend", and his true aristocratic colors have come through when he refused to make the possession of
carbofuran, a banned poison particularly deadly to raptors, a criminal offense. Richard Benyon's refusal to make possession of a poison with no legitimate use a crime has enraged senior MPs who requested the change in law to conform with Scotland's; they say his refusal to act is a shocking confirmation of his "cosy links to the shooting lobby". A former director of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds called the Minister's inaction "astounding". A report by the House of Commons Environment Audit Committee firmly links cases of raptor poisoning to shooting interests. There were 633 confirmed bird of prey poisoning incidents between 2002 and 2011 in the UK. Raptor species destroyed by poisoning ranged from golden eagles to peregrine falcons and carbofuran was the poison of choice in 50% of the cases. One grain of carbofuran is enough to kill a large eagle. Most of the perpetrators convicted of offenses against raptors were gamekeepers on private estates. Benyon said in response to criticism of his obvious conflict of interest that outlawing the chemical might not be a "proportionate course of action".
Benyon has run afoul of wildlife advocates before. In 2010 he proposed studying common buzzard
(Buteo buteo)[photo, left] predation on young pheasants by blasting buzzard nests with shotguns. Forty million young pheasants are bred each year and then released on private estates for the shooting sport. A consulting firm commissioned by the British Association for Shooting & Conservation concluded that only 1-2% of poults (young pheasants) are killed by birds of prey. More are killed by vehicle collisions. The
plan was dropped by Downing Street when the press derided the idea as bird-brained. When owners of a grouse shoot on Walshaw Moor were being investigated for damage to a protected bog, the prosecution was suddenly dropped in March without explanation. Benyon is the minister in charge of Natural England, the government's wildlife protection agency. His boss, Prime Minister David Cameron, is also a shooter.
Benyon has run afoul of wildlife advocates before. In 2010 he proposed studying common buzzard (Buteo buteo)[photo, left] predation on young pheasants by blasting buzzard nests with shotguns. Forty million young pheasants are bred each year and then released on private estates for the shooting sport. A consulting firm commissioned by the British Association for Shooting & Conservation concluded that only 1-2% of poults (young pheasants) are killed by birds of prey. More are killed by vehicle collisions. The plan was dropped by Downing Street when the press derided the idea as bird-brained. When owners of a grouse shoot on Walshaw Moor were being investigated for damage to a protected bog, the prosecution was suddenly dropped in March without explanation. Benyon is the minister in charge of Natural England, the government's wildlife protection agency. His boss, Prime Minister David Cameron, is also a shooter.