The President of the RSPB, Dr. Amir Khan, is best known for being resident doctor on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, rather than someone with any notable experience of land management.
In advance of the start of the grouse shooting season last year Khan announced "I’m the proudest of Yorkshiremen – but this kind of crap is exactly what we don’t need in our beautiful county. Grouse shooting brings millions to the tables of a select few and does nothing for wildlife conservation."
Despite the abuse grouse shooting receives so regularly from the RSPB, even their own website admits that: 'In some upland areas, the control of foxes and crows by gamekeepers managing moorlands for red grouse shooting may be important in maintaining breeding curlew populations and preventing further declines. We are currently undertaking research that seeks to establish the extent to which declines may be related to changes in moorland habitats and land managements, including gamekeeping and predator control.
So much for the charity’s promise to be ‘neutral on the ethics of shooting’.
As the Spectator noted at the time, even the RSPB themselves carry out their own predator control using guns to protect curlew numbers.
A point clearly that was not registered by the RSPB's own President.