Yet another E-petition update!

Early this morning the number of signatures on the E-petition   Licencing upland grouse moors and gamekeepers
was just under 9500. It has now exceeded this figure (9530) and continues to grow steadily.

It now needs around fifty signatures a day for ten days in order to exceed the required total of 10000 signatures at which point an official Government response will be issued. The response to the petition's proposals will be interesting to say the least and, I suspect, is eagerly awaited by many. Whilst I never presumed the proposals would be passionately embraced by Government, and result in law in what might be a process of automatic acceptance, I did hope that the petition would at least raise again the need for regulation and keep the idea alive.

Hopefully a Government response will be issued and then thought can be given as to what the next steps might be. Already over 9500 people have indicated that they feel there are sufficient  raptor persecution problems associated with upland grouse moors to warrant some form of regulation. The saddest element amongst all of this is that that realisation is not new; such problems have been in place for decades!  The industry, for that's what it is , deserves to have sensible regulations under which it might operate, as a lot of other businesses and professions have to do, so that indiscriminate persecution of particularly iconic species ends or penalties occur.  Regulation would not pose any problems at all for those estates etc which operate legitimately, indeed one might hope an unblemished record over several years could be positive publicity . Regulation would also eventually separate those who persist in breaking the law which, one hopes, might then bring condemnation of them from within their peer group. A pipe dream?  Maybe?  But the plain fact of the matter is that discussions have been going on for years without anything positive arising, indeed one could come to a conclusion that the contributing parties are now further apart than previously.

This is an attempt to break the circle and stalemate and ensure the debate is kept alive, leads to an increasing conviction amongst a greater number of politicians that something needs to be done which then results in action. Of course the ultimate objective is to achieve  a reduction in the utterly ridiculous situation that currently exists whereby iconic species within our wildlife heritage are persecuted.  All this is occurring associated with selfish pursuits by a relative minority practised under the aegis of commercial operations so why should they not be open to regulation?

So, if you in any way agree with the sentiments expressed above, please sign the petition  ( see the link above ) and lend weight to to at least an attempt to initiate progress and improvement to a situation which shouldn't be happening in the 21st Millenium.  Thank you