{"id":194685,"date":"2025-10-12T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/194685\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T10:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T10:13:08","slug":"shooting-times-uses-selective-quote-to-shamelessly-misrepresent-my-view-on-predator-culls-raptor-persecution-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/194685\/","title":{"rendered":"Shooting Times uses selective quote to shamelessly misrepresent my view on predator culls \u2013 Raptor Persecution UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, on 24 September, the Shooting Times published a news item in which it was suggested that I support predator culls:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Shooting Times article was supposedly a pr\u00e9cis of an article that had appeared in The Guardian on 11 September, where it was reported that Mary Colwell, Director of Curlew Action, had told a farming conference that a \u201cserious conversation\u201d needs to be had about Fox culling. The full Guardian article can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was asked by The Guardian journalist (Helena Horton) to comment on the proposition of widespread Fox and Crow culling for Curlew conservation and Helena duly included my quote, in full, in her article:<\/p>\n

\u201cLethal control of some generalist predatory species will not solve the long-term issue of their over-abundance, which is a direct result of the mismanagement of our countryside.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three main long-term issues that need to be addressed include intensive agriculture, where silage-making increases feeding opportunities for Carrion Crows and reduces the breeding success of Curlews; the annual release of up to 60 million non-native Pheasants and Red-legged Partridges, which sustain artificially-high numbers of predators and scavengers; and the illegal killing of birds of prey, including species such as Goshawks, which would otherwise limit the populations of mesopredators and scavengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the short-term there may be justification for targeted and limited predator control for specific nature conservation purposes, but this should be done only as a last resort and only where robust scientific evidence shows there to be a need\u201d.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll notice that the Shooting Times article published just 12 words from my 139-word quote, selectively chosen and presented out of context, to infer my supposed support for widespread predator culls.<\/p>\n

This is either shameless misrepresentation or whoever wrote that piece for Shooting Times, presumably overseen by the editor, is clearly struggling to grasp the principles of basic English comprehension \u2013 you know, the stuff you learn at school when you\u2019re eleven about context and drawing conclusions.<\/p>\n

And just because a newspaper publishes an article about a controversial topic, including opposing views, doesn\u2019t mean that the newspaper supports either side of the debate \u2013 it\u2019s simply reporting a balanced argument for and against.<\/p>\n

How can the Shooting Times interpret this as, \u2018National press backs fox control for conservation\u2018?!<\/p>\n

Muppets.<\/p>\n

I guess the Shooting Times also missed Mary Colwell\u2019s subsequent letter to The Guardian, published on 21 September, in which she clarified her position on predator control:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite the message that Shooting Times wants to get across, is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of weeks ago, on 24 September, the Shooting Times published a news item in which it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-194685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}