Grouse shooting, global warming link

Herald Sun ^ | 10 August 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

THE British grouse shooting season, which begins this weekend, is contributing to global warming, an ecology specialist told the latest edition of New Scientist magazine today.

Adrian Yallop, from Cranfield University in southeast England, said the problem stemmed from increasing demand for the game birds, which is having a serious impact on the environment.

Gamekeepers burning vast swathes of moorland vegetation to encourage the growth of heather, a prime habitat for red grouse, threatens to release billions of tonnes of carbon locked in the peat bogs underneath, he said.

"In terms of carbon storage, the moors can be thought of as Britain's rainforests. Where burning occurs, the hydrology changes and the peat is open to decomposition and erosion," Mr Yallop told the magazine.

"This strips the moor of carbon as surely as setting fire to the Amazon forest."

Mr Yallop said unregulated burning was now taking place "on an industrial scale" and estimated from aerial photography that rates had doubled over the last 30 years to 114 square kilometres.

"The peat, which should be saturated and covered in bog vegetation, is in places dry to a metre down, rapidly decomposing and eroding away," said Mr Yallop.

The red grouse shooting season officially starts every year on "The Glorious Twelfth" of August, although if the date falls on a Sunday, it is put back a day. It ends on December 10.

Millionaires, celebrities and royals converge on moorland in Scotland and England in an attempt to bag a brace or two of the sought-after birds, which can fly at up to 96km/h.

There are 459 grouse moors in Scotland and northern England covering 1,500,000 hectares, according to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation.

Shooting takes place in a formal, controlled setting, with the native wild birds being driven over the shooters by "beaters".

The Moorland Association, which was set up in 1987 to halt the loss of heather moorlands in Britain, has defended controlled burning by moorland keepers as necessary to get rid of over-mature heather.

"The fires are planned to move steadily with the wind, burning old growth while doing little more than scorching the ground below," it said, saying keepers were acutely aware of soil and weather conditions.

Grouse shooting also provides shops, pubs, hotels and other industries in remote British upland areas with their main source of income, it said.

[Aussie Dasher]

Am I being a tad harsh when I suggest all this global warming crap is getting out of hand?

[MD_Willington_1976]

I had gas really bad this morning, better put that on the "contributes to global warming" list too... {/sarcasm...

[Dog Gone]

Oh for pete's sake. Now it's caused by bogs and hunters.

[rellimpank]

--I think this contributed just a little more to global warming than my eastward walk today contributed to slowing down the earth's rotation--

[capt. norm]

Next we need to ban butane lighters and have everyone go back to using friction to start a fire:

[Tench_Coxe]

"Am I being a tad harsh when I suggest all this global warming crap is getting out of hand?"

I'd even be more harsh by suggesting that the grouse shooters might try hunting a different kind of prey. But I won't suggest it.

[facedown]

These guys are becoming laughable.

[AFPhys]

Surface area of earth: 509,600,000 sq.km.

Burning for grouse hunt per year: 114 sq.km. = 0.0000224%

We're really in trouble if these dolts believe burning this little is making a worrying contribution to the earth getting warmer.

[raygun]

Lets not talk about the thousands upon thousands of acres of forest being burned in SE Asia so as to clear land for planting of stuff in order to extract vegetable oil that can be burned in diesel engines as fuel in the EU, eh? What a bunch of loons.

On another note: lets not talk about the tree huggers that would cut down a 12" diameter, 40' foot tall green tree in a botanical reserve of a forest, utilize the log to prevent access by harvesters who contracted to extract burn killed trees from burned areas of an adjacent forest. Also, insist that the tree is only 9" diameter, and that to make a big deal out harvesting it from the area of origin and to be used for the stated purpose is "petty".

[mugs99]

Am I being a tad harsh when I suggest all this global warming crap is getting out of hand?

No, you're right. It is crap and it is getting out of hand.
This eco-nazi is claimimg that burning the brush will contribute to global warming. Before desert storm they were warning that Saddam might set the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire if we went to war. That would cause a global catastrophie that could bring extinction to mankind. Well, he did set the oil fields on fire. Where is that catastrophie they promised us?
.

[Waco]

They'll never catch us in the "forest fire/wild fire" department.

[HP8753]

Thanks to "Global Warming",We no longer have mile thick ice sheets covering Minnesota.

[sam_paine]

I thought this was fianlly a humorous article that just picked two correlated things (like Snickers Candy Bar sales and El Nino temperatures) and proved once and for all that there was clearly a causal Algore-like link between those two, also.

Alas, it was only a clinical test of the reader's sanity. I think I'm failing.

[freepatriot32]

now they got a new angle to try to ban guns and hunting

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[freepatriot32]

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[freepatriot32]

ping

[gondramB]

>>I thought this was fianlly a humorous article that just picked two correlated things (like Snickers Candy Bar sales and El Nino temperatures) and proved once and for all that there was clearly a causal Algore-like link between those two, also.

Alas, it was only a clinical test of the reader's sanity. I think I'm failing.<<

That is unfortunate....

I saw a "study" that showed height correlates with scoring in basketball - so obviously playing basketball causes height.

[Fiddlstix]

Am I being a tad harsh when I suggest all this global warming crap is getting out of hand?

Actually, my FRiend, it got "out of hand" several years ago. Now it's insanity.

[editor-surveyor]

Out of hand?

It's out of butt !!!!

[Aussie Dasher]

LOL! How VERY true!