Grouse moor management’s vital conservation role – Yorkshire Post Letters

I AM very surprised to hear that Yorkshire Water is considering not extending leases for grouse moor management (The Yorkshire Post, July 29), but perhaps this is incorrect as the article also asserts that Swinton Estate is moving away from shooting, which is not the 
case.

I have been fortunate enough to have lived on and now own an estate that preserves and enhances the habitat and associated biodiversity, with grouse moor management an essential part of this success.

The private investment that comes from harvesting surplus grouse on the moors helps to pay for habitat conservation work and essential predator control. Curlew are five times more abundant and 3.5 times more likely to fledge a chick on a grouse moor than any other land.

Moors recently managed by public sector conservation bodies have a poor track record in both prevention of wildfire and maintaining populations of ground-nesting birds. Grouse moor owners have completed over a quarter of the Government’s 2025 peatland restoration target for the whole of England. I agree we need to be managing our land sustainably and grouse moor management provides the ideal means for doing this.

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