Daily Telegraph Today

Bloods-boiling as their representative was supposed to be sat in the DI conference only yesterday....
 
A whole load of bilge great for selling newspapers, and filling the uneducated readers head full of nonsense ,must be some conference it most certainly wasn't published anywhere to my knowledge , I would love to know just where they are collating all their information from .
 
It's disappointing when a paper like the Telegraph gets simple facts wrong; they are pretty steadfast in their support for country sports. There was an article in last Saturday's edition about a book written by a Forestry Commission Ranger...it would be rare to see a review like that in the Guardian!
 
"But there is little control in cities as it is expensive for local authorities to trap and shoot the deer. Anecdotal evidence of problems is growing. Two years ago a 20 stone stag stopped rush hour traffic in Milton Keynes, while in Glasgow the animals are being illegally poached with packs of dogs or air rifles."

I gave up reading at this paragraph. Absolute B*ll*cks! Another example of a journalist not bothering to find the facts for herself and just writing a load of crap to fill space in the paper. My Mrs is a journalist and the standard of journalism in this country is nothing to be proud of, but then again it seems most people in this country aren't bothered about the facts anymore:evil:

Part of the problem these days is anyone can be a "journalist", there is no shortage of people out there willing to do anything to get their name in the paper, paid or unpaid. The editors must be rubbing their hands together with all this free shite to fill the pages and e-pages of their rags.

Now, where's my shotgun?
Mick(Off to have a go at some crows)
 
It's the deer initiative conference this weekend. I guess they are getting deer in the news to help their funding situation. Disappointed by all the mistakes in the Telegraph article, I'm sure most of the fault lies with sloppy reporting by the paper and not the DI trying to stir things up.
 
I've written a letter to the Telegraph complaining about this. I also pointed out to them that contrary to a statement to the side of the main article a 300lb red stag on Exmoor is far from the largest wild animal in the UK. As we all know there are far bigger stags out there and of course wild boar have been shot in the UK in excess of 500lbs and the largest wild animal on mainland UK is probably a wild boar.

Last week the DT published a very nice photo of feeding red kites but then messed the whole thing up by stating that red kites had been reintroduced to Wales and now numbered 500 which of course is completely untrue. There have been no reintroductions of red kites to Wales and the number of breeding pairs in Wales is estimated at about 900.
 
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Just got back from the DI conference. I'm sure that the DI as well as many other organisations will suffer due to the potential change of government. However there were many important issues raised and discussed at the conference including the non-lead bullet issue, RTAs, poaching, non native species and their management to name a few. I certainly learnt a lot by being there.
 
Yeah, shame that as a fully funded charity it couldn't have been a bit more affordable for a few other folk to get there.

There's always a cost to running events like these. Having to attend conferences for work reasons I can say that the cost of the DI one was pretty low (170 quid for the two days).

When you take into account the cost of the venue, catering, travelling expenses of speakers etc, admin costs and the like, you will not have a lot of change from the income generated.

It all depends on how the partners want any charity (or whatever organisation it is) to psend the money it gets in. I suspect that using income to wholly fund conferences when other expenditure items are being squeezed would be unpopular.

Seriously it seems to me that the conference was pitched at a reasonable level.
 
It's a funny thing but I've always said that a deer or pheasant couldn't be safer than in my back garden. Find the same animal on my ground and it's a different story.

I had a seminal moment some years ago. Where I live we have a big gang of greylags that about once every winter feed on the maize stubble behind the house. Nine times out of ten the wind direction means that when they lift off they turn away from me but on one occasion it was the last day of the season, there were about 200 geese in the field and the wind was off my side of the valley so I reckoned they would come my way. I got into position behind my hedge and waited as the light started to go. The geese lifted with that fantastic noise that they make, flew up the valley and then turned my way. A gang came over me only about 30 yards up. I put up the gun swung through the leader and.............put the gun down. I just couldn't pull the trigger, it didn't seem right. I don't know why......maybe it was all a bit too easy and no real hunting involved... I don't know but I discovered that I have little appetite for shooting anything in my garden and as I said a deer or pheasant couldn't be safer.
 
Radical difference in the two organisations is that BASC has thousands of paying members while the DI depends on funding from a number of partners. Ergo BASC can afford to fund the conference at a nominal fee.
 
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