New UK animal welfare minister backed seal and wild bird culls
New UK animal welfare minister backed seal and wild bird culls
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who was made a baron last week, had complained about impact on salmon stocks
My TL;DR:
Downing Street is facing calls to explain why it has appointed an unelected shooting enthusiast as its animal welfare minister after it emerged he has backed the culling of seals and wild birds.
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who was last week given a peerage to allow him to become minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), owns a grouse moor in Scotland and has argued for the relaxation of rules on shooting wild birds that prey on salmon.
He is also on the board of a fishery which applied to obtain a licence to kill seals in 2021; last year he gained a licence to kill wild cormorants and sawbill ducks.
Furthermore, in September, he signed a letter with fellow grouse moor owners lobbying the Scottish government to water down new laws that bring in licences for grouse-shooting in an effort to address persecution of birds of prey.
Douglas-Miller was made a baron on Friday in a surprise appointment as an environment minister and given the portfolio responsibility for animal welfare this week.
The Tories are just scorching the earth now. One year of terrible legislation means a year of work for Labour undoing it all, thus preventing them from fixing things -- to the extent that they were ever going to.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Downing Street is facing calls to explain why it has appointed a wealthy, unelected shooting enthusiast as its animal welfare minister after it emerged he has backed the culling of seals and wild birds.
Robbie Douglas-Miller, who was last week given a peerage to allow him to become minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), owns a grouse moor in Scotland and has argued for the relaxation of rules on shooting wild birds that prey on salmon.
The peer said in a letter to supporters of the Atlantic Salmon Trust, which he chaired: “Difficulties do remain with a lack of understanding of the impact of predation by increasing numbers of fish-eating birds and a burgeoning seal population – all enjoying protection by law.”
But they need our protection: since they are slow to reproduce and vulnerable to the climate crisis and disease, any increase in adult mortality can quickly affect a population, destroying a keystone species of our rich marine wildlife.”
In September, he signed a letter with fellow grouse moor owners lobbying the Scottish government to water down new laws that bring in licences for grouse-shooting in an effort to address persecution of birds of prey.
“We’ve already got one wealthy, unelected grouse moor-owning Defra minister in Lord Benyon, why do we need another one and why has this appointment been made now when the government is hurtling towards certain defeat in an imminent general election?”
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Shameless jockeying. I'm sure I signed a petition not long ago to stop this sort of thing.