A cross-party motion at a meeting of Liverpool city council on the evening of 16 October 2019 has condemned shooting of all animals as “barbaric.”
The motion was put forward after plans for the British Shooting Show to take place in Liverpool in September 2020 were pulled by the council, on the back of mayor Joe Anderson’s intervention to terminate the contract between the Great British Shooting Show and the Exhibition Centre Liverpool.
Garry Doolan of BASC attended the meeting to challenge the motion and speak on behalf of the shooting community.
Fieldsports Nation Weekly News Round-Up
🤓 David rounds up the top stories from around the fieldsports world 🌎Watch the show in full here: https://youtu.be/zRR-LXzCF9U➡️Liverpool City council is debating hunting and shooting with BASC – The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, Charlie reports live.➡️ Robin Foxer’s new ratshooting video captures a UFO ➡️Boris Johnson wants to ban hunting tourism. ➡️Chris Packham plans to spread disinformation about grouseshooting at a demo in Yorkshire this weekend.➡️North Yorkshire Police appeals for information after a dead buzzard was found by a member of the public. Shot was found in the carcass.➡️2,300-acre sporting estate in Scotland is up for sale at £2.8 million.➡️Antis in Scotland want to ban a member of the royal family from opening a wildlife centre.➡️Green politicians claim reforesting Scotland will create thousands of jobs.➡️Anti-hunting cosmetics shop LUSH UK has a pigeon problem.➡️Peter Matjasic who runs WaffenlandTV hunting channel breaks his leg while hunting and captures it all on camera. ➡️Danish inventor has found a way of catching spent cartridges.➡️World Wildlife Fund reports Denmark to the Bern Convention for building its wild boar fence.➡️Poachers target zoo in Denmark.➡️Deer breaks into a shop in the Italian town of Cortina causing havoc.➡️Hunting and falconry is massively popular in Saudi Arabia. More than 70,000 people came to the first day of the @Saudi Falcons and Hunting Exhibition in Riyadh.➡️Wacky races in Spain as poachers in cars flee from local people in 4×4's.
Posted by Fieldsports News on Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Mr Doolan delivered a five-minute address to the hearing and said afterwards: “We made extremely robust points in favour of shooting and the work done in conservation to support shooting, but the mayor of Liverpool and the councillors were not interested in our arguments.
“They have labelled all people who shoot in the UK as barbaric and that simply has to be a gross misrepresentation of our community. The motion was illogical when set against the context of the clear, sound evidence we presented in favour of shooting and its economic and environmental benefits.”
Garry Doolan (2nd from the right) and BASC employees ready to lobby councillors
Despite a robust challenge by @BASCnews the anti-shooting motion was passed by Liverpool City Council at a hearing at the city’s town hall tonight. BASC has condemned the decision as short-sighted. More follows tomorrow.
— BASC (@BASCnews) October 16, 2019
Dr Conor O’Gorman, BASC’s head of campaigns and policy, said: “The City Council should never have been allowed to take such a poorly composed and misinformed motion to this stage. The motion is an attack and slur on the British shooting community.
“This is a simple case of emotions trumping facts and scientific evidence. The vitriol seen on social media from some councillors regarding ‘gun culture’ are an insult to the thousands of legitimate certificate holders who do fantastic work to conserve wildlife and the environment.”
The response from the Shooting Community was swift …
That’s all that shooting in Southport knackered. Oh and the duke of Westminster’s place at Abby stead
— jumped up pantry boy (@SimonDlyons) October 16, 2019
So they won’t be conducting any pest control I guess.
Surely hypocritical to poison animals that will endure a horrible painful death as a result.— Graeme Purvis (@graeme2711) October 16, 2019
Shooting Times news editor Matt Cross will be writing up the story in full in next week’s issue, out 23 October. The British Shooting Show in Birmingham will take place as planned at the NEC from 14-16 February 2020.