Thread by @SteB777

At the very best @TonyJuniper is ecologically naive, and is being manipulated by grouse shooting interests, into believing that the breeding success of Curlews on grouse moors, can be replicated elsewhere, with predator control.
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I have provided a comprehensive explanation as to why it is false and naive to believe that the breeding successes of Curlews and other ground nesting waders, on managed grouse moors, can be replicated elsewhere, for a number of factors.

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Part of the reason, this can't be replicated, as I explain, is because upland grouse moors naturally support far lower numbers of Crows and Foxes, as sheep are generally excluded from them, and there would be very little to support, their populations all year round.
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I will now present the killer fact, which absolutely proves that grouse moor control of Foxes and Crows, can't be replicated elsewhere, in a way, that would benefit the breeding success of Curlews, as @Natures_Voice found.

4/rspb.org.uk/helping-nature…

You see, upland grouse moor, is not the only place, where there are full-time gamekeepers engaged in the intensive killing of Foxes and Crows, because it also happens on lowland Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge shoots.
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However, this is what all those pointing to the success of breeding Curlews on grouse moors, and who naively believe this can be replicated outside grouse moor, with Fox and Crow control are overlooking.

6/curlewaction.org/parliamentary-…

Whilst pheasant shoots, intensively cull Crows and Foxes, they are far less successful at eliminating them, like on upland grouse moor, which have very little food and attraction for Crows and Foxes. In fact, they attract Foxes and Crows.
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To be clear what I am saying, if you kill Crows and Foxes on managed grouse moor, very few will be drawn back onto it, because there is almost a total lack of food, all year round, to attract them. Not even dead sheep and afterbirth from the lambing season.
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This is why this example of upland grouse moor success in sustaining successfully breeding Curlews, cannot be replicated elsewhere, through predator control, because not even managed pheasant shoots, can suppress Fox and Crow populations like this.
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However, there are not many places that have managed pheasant shoots, and populations of breeding Curlew, as the habitat is generally not suitable for Curlew.
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However, there is one example of this, Fenns and Whixall Moss NNR, National Nature Reserve, where all my observations of the last 11 years are based. There is an active pheasant shoot, on the Fenns, Welsh side, because of an historical lease on shooting rights.
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As I have detailed, attempts by the @NaturalEngland management of Fenns and Whixall Moss NNR to control Foxes and Crows, have been singularly unsuccessful, with me seeing similar numbers of Crows and Foxes, post culling as before.
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In fact, the place I still see most Foxes, are around the pheasant rearing pens, in the conifer plantation, at the north end of the Moss. But the pheasant shoot has always been killing Foxes here, but they are still attracted by the pheasants.
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As shooters and their supporters have noted, when responding to me, is you hardly see any Crows and Foxes on managed grouse moors. But this is not because the keepers are so good. Rather It's because there is little to attract them.
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Go to a managed pheasant shoot, even with a bevvy of full-time gamekeepers, and you will see plenty of Foxes and Crows, even though they kill loads of them. This is why grouse moor breeding Curlew success, can't be transferred elsewhere, with predator control.
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Curlew conservationists are allowing themselves to be used and manipulated by grouse shooting interests, who desperately need Curlews as a fig leaf, to cover up their illegal persecution of raptors, especially Hen Harriers, and greenwash themselves.

16/deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/03/20/hen…

So these grouse shooting interests are pretending to be heroes of conservation, and greenwashing themselves, by pretending to have the solution to reversing the Curlew decline, with grouse moor type predator control.
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However, as I explain here, the claim that the Curlew decline, can be reversed away from grouse moors, is a specious explanation. A specious argument, is one that is superficially plausible, but on close examination, spurious.
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For reasons I have explained here, it is relatively easy to suppress Fox and Crow populations as there is not much of a year round food supply, to attract more. This is entirely different away from managed grouse moors.
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@GreenJennyJones

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