Moorland management!

[Judy]

Hypocrites!

https://www.gwct.org.uk/blogs/news/2020 ... 39b9619f16

[newf]

Why is the heather cut or burned ? Apologize for my ignorance.

[trekmoor]

The more good quality heather you have the more good quality grouse you are likely to have.
Burning heather means it's roots that remain after burning put out fresh new growth that the grouse like.

A well managed moor should look like a patchwork quilt from a distance, with patches of fresh burnt stuff, fresh new stuff, longer older stuff.

Grouse feed on and in among young, fresh heather. They usually nest in the longer stuff that grew in a previous year.....the long "old" heather isn't much good except for causing people to develop the " heather lowp!" It used to be said that you could spot a moorland keeper walking along Princes St. all dressed up in his Sunday best by the way he walked …he'd developed the Heather Lowp .....a way of stepping over long , "rank" heather rather than pushing your feet and legs through it.

Heather is actually a small bush and it can grow to be long with thick stems.

Wullie

[Naj]

Why is the heather cut or burned ? Apologize for my ignorance.

Heather is burnt to form a patchwork of different growth on keepered moors to provide a mixture of young tender shoots and deeper heather for nesting grouse. In Scotland it’s called the muir burn and is restricted to early spring. I believe you also need a license to practice it. But as I understand it the Bradford moor was being Flailed in places to produce fire breaks, which is ok in theory but the problem is that it should have been done a few months back and not in the middle of the nesting season.

Naj

[westcountry]

A town council made up of townie business men use council tax payers money to Flail moorland in the crucial nesting time for Lapwing ,Curlew and other moorland birds. Makes you want to cry. And they want to ban shooting and farming so that they can protect wildlife?

[newf]

Thanks, Wullie and Naj !

I take it, Westcountry, that burn or cut times have been different in the past to lessen their impact ? What about the grouse then ? Aren’t they nesting in those places too ? Or, is this just for fire concerns and they’re ignoring the wildlife damage ?

[westcountry]

There is a time limit on when burning can take place ,in order to protect ground nesting birds. This moronic council banned the management of the moor and then decided to cut it flat with tractors at a time when ground nesting birds need peace.

[ips]

The more good quality heather you have the more good quality grouse you are likely to have.
Burning heather means it's roots that remain after burning put out fresh new growth that the grouse like.

A well managed moor should look like a patchwork quilt from a distance, with patches of fresh burnt stuff, fresh new stuff, longer older stuff.

Grouse feed on and in among young, fresh heather. They usually nest in the longer stuff that grew in a previous year.....the long "old" heather isn't much good except for causing people to develop the " heather lowp!" It used to be said that you could spot a moorland keeper walking along Princes St. all dressed up in his Sunday best by the way he walked …he'd developed the Heather Lowp .....a way of stepping over long , "rank" heather rather than pushing your feet and legs through it.

Heather is actually a small bush and it can grow to be long with thick stems.

Wullie

Love this , informative and humerous

[Nickheref]

I watched Ray Mears in Australia the other day helping set a fire to burn the dead grass to encourage new growth to bring in game etc that the aboriginal people hunt and plants that they eat that would otherwise be swamped out by the coarse growth.

Unfortunately these councils are so divorced from the natural world they haven't got a clue. I am sometimes asked questions in my job that have me reeling thinking "No of course you cannot do that now it is the wrong time of year you f*****g moron" but end up replying "It is on the list to do at the appropriate time" .

[David]

Burning season dates
You must burn during the ‘burning season’, which runs from:

1 October to 15 April in upland areas (severely disadvantaged areas) – find these on MAGIC
1 November to 31 March in other areas
When you need a licence
You need a licence if you want to:

burn outside the burning season
burn more than 10 hectares in a single burn
burn more than 0.5 hectares on a slope steeper than 45 degrees or on rocky or scree areas
burn in a way that exposes more than 0.5 hectares of bare soil (where no more than 2% is covered by plant material)
burn in a way that exposes bare soil that stretches for more than 25 metres along the banks of a watercourse (any channel with flowing water apart from pipes) and is more than 1 metre wide throughout
leave soil smouldering for more than 48 hours
You also need consent from Natural England to burn in environmentally protected areas, for example a site of special scientific interest.