About five years ago a senior charity figure ‘advised’ me (a little too aggressively for my liking) to ‘choose sides’. It seemed an odd and unnecessary thing to say. I had ‘chosen sides’ years earlier: I was on the side of wildlife, of plants, of biodiversity and nature and was utterly opposed to hunting, shooting, cruelty, exploitation, and wildlife crime. I’d proved that over and over again, right back from when I launched Charlie’s Bird Blog (in a distant past before Wordpress and home wi-fi) writing about what I saw birding around the world with an airline I worked for (and which I left in 2010). Proved it again when after what I thought was a friendly merger with a similar but US-based blog called 10,000 Birds I was booted off at short notice (literally almost overnight) because my anti-hunting views were ‘upsetting’ Americans and I refused to compromise. Again when I launched Birders Against Wildlife Crime (BAWC) a decade ago and came up with the 3Rs (Recognise, Record, Report). When I helped launch Hen Harrier Day - an idea initially conceived by BAWC member Alan Tilmouth and brilliantly taken up by Mark Avery and Chris Packham. When I started podcasting under the Talking Naturally banner. When I joined the board of League Against Cruel Sports to help fashion a policy on shooting (I did my term and moved on). When in 2015 I was asked by Lush founder Mark Constantine - a Talking Naturally listener - to make podcasts on wildlife and the environment for him and Lush.
Looking at all of that I suppose I have moved around a bit looking for the ‘ideal situation’, but I’d clearly chosen sides a long, long time ago. And I like to think I’ve carried on in the same vein since with The War on Wildlife Project and Off the Leash. In just the last four months I’ve written or podcasted about, for example, gamekeepers and raptor persecution, explained why if foxhunting is banned it still takes place, discussed the royal immunity from crime in relation to two Hen Harriers killed at Sandringham, and why the shooting industry needs - unequivocally - to be stopped.
Anyway, I’m on the move again, taking my love of wildlife and my total opposition to hunting and shooting with me. Taking everything I’ve learned over the years, and all of the experiences I’ve built up and the contacts I’ve made. Taking my energy, focus, and drive. Where am I going? I’m going to be joining Rob Pownall and Matt Smithers at Keep The Ban.
Moving out from the shelter and support of Lush (and Mark in particular) was a difficult decision. But I feel it’s the right move and at the right time. That’s because I’m a huge supporter of Keep The Ban already - and an even bigger supporter of them after what Rob has outlined to me over the last few weeks or so. In a nutshell, that’s ‘expansion’. Not diluting or compromising in any way on their campaigning work to finally end fox hunting, but adding, growing, reaching out to ‘do more’ for other wildlife, particularly in areas relating to bird shooting, species decline, and the desperate state of our nature here in the UK.
That’s hugely ambitious for a relatively new start-up, but that’s why he and I have been talking. Rob knows my stance and my skillset. We’re complementary -what he can do I can’t, and vice versa. He knows I ‘chose sides’ a long time ago, too, and it’s the same side he also chose when he founded Keep the Ban in 2015. We are both 100% opposed to the persecution of wildlife (domestic animals too, but that’s not where Keep The Ban is headed right now).
Up until now Rob’s focus has been on fighting foxhunting, but with me on board we can broaden that passion into fighting the shooting industry as well. Not as an add-on, or an afterthought, but a full-scale, utterly committed parallel effort to shut down an appallingly wasteful, cruel, crime-ridden industry that sells sentient animals as live targets, an industry that kills millions of animals in traps, snares, with poisons, or with lead shot. And we can develop campaigns to protect and support, species like hedgehogs, stoats, weasels, and badgers as well.
What might all this work look like? Well, we need to firmly define our policies first (that will be one of my main roles) and write pages of new information (I’ll be heavily involved with that too). We will need to plan new campaigns (ditto) and undercover operations. At the same time we plan to refine how we fund groups working in the same arena, perhaps basing it on something I designed for The War on Wildlife Project where I bought equipment like trail cameras and night vision kit for monitors and activists. I’ll be podcasting every month, and we hope to re-establish something I called ‘shortcasts’ for anyone interested in using the massive Keep The Ban social media reach to talk about and promote their work (I’ve always been keen to promote other groups, that’s not going to stop).
Realistically it’ll be a few months before I can make much of an impact, and probably not before pheasant and duck shooting starts again in the autumn.
And clearly not all of this work will sit comfortably within the existing website or ‘Keep the Ban’ brand either. Rob was already planning a huge redesign of the site - adding multi-layered databases to track fox hunts for example - and has been thinking about changing the Keep The Ban name to better reflect this expanded focus. That’s his decision of course, and an announcement will probably be made in a few months. I’m confident existing (and new) supporters will understand the rationale of whatever decision is taken though - and hopefully be excited at the amount of ‘good’ we aim to do!
Some people will of course not be remotely supportive of my move. The shooting industry of course, but some folk on ‘our side’ too.
Opinions are one thing (and I never expect everyone to agree with me), but let me address two elephants in the room. Firstly, yes, Rob messed up when he looked to support a fox hospital and had his photo taken holding a fox without properly supporting it. It was a naive error, but it was a mistake firmly (in my opinion anyway) in the category of ‘doing the wrong thing for the right reasons’. Have I made mistakes in the past? Of course I have. I told him at the time that I would gauge him on how he learned from the mistake, which is exactly what I’d had to do when I screwed up. And secondly - shock horror - Rob takes a salary for spending seven days a week campaigning for wildlife. If you are one of the few that can afford to work without payment you’re very lucky. Most of us can’t. And if you really think that charities, businesses, industries don’t pay for expertise/talent - well, I hate to be the one that shatters the illusion, but they do. All of them. I’m sorry, but it’s just not a valid criticism to denigrate someone’s ethics or motives because they need to pay the rent, put food on the table, or be able to focus exclusively on the work they feel compelled to do. Yes, of course, some incredible people do the most amazing work for animals ‘for free’: I admire and applaud them, but I (and Keep The Ban) would also like to buy them the camera they can’t afford or help fund the work that they simply can’t do without some outside help…
So, there you go. I am on my way to Keep The Ban. I won’t be starting officially until September, but what better day to write a post about a brilliant opportunity to work against the shooting industry than August the 12th - the ‘Inglorious 12th’, the shameful day that all the slaughter of our native predators, the burning of our precious uplands, the wilful blindness on raptor persecution, the start of the casual destruction of half a million wild birds by shooters, has been leading up to…
It will take time to put an end to all this hideous killing, but for anyone who doubts what can be done when people pull together think about the ‘impossible’ achievements of the civil rights movements, the animal rights movements, the Suffragettes, equality campaigners…the list goes on.
I’ve said it before - and I’ll undoubtedly say it again - we will reach a point - in the next few years or the next twenty-five, who knows - when the shooting industry will be shut down. Whether that’s through public revulsion at the killing of millions of sentient animals for fun, the impact of the climate crisis on land use, or the ongoing catastrophic decline in our biodiversity - or more likely a combination of every issue that this horrible industry impacts - it will happen.
And when it does, I’ll be out on the streets celebrating with the rest of you…until then, well, I’ve chosen my side and I’ve no intention of changing my mind.
Follow me on Twitter at charliemoores
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