Grouse Campaign

Stop Corporate Grouse Shooting Days

In light of the government's rejection of an e-petition in October 2016 calling for the banning of grouse shooting which was signed by 123,077 people, we have been prompted to adopt a new approach.

We are now calling upon UK companies to treat grouse shooting as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issue. We know that grouse shooting estates offer tailor made ‘corporate days’ for businesses to shoot grouse on the UK’s moorlands, and given the environmental and animal welfare implications of this pursuit we want businesses to make a stand against it.

As part of this research we are circulating a small – five question – questionnaire to 189 UK companies. We  had positive responses from:

Company responses

Read the replies from companies to our questionnaire (some contact information has been redacted). 

• Aldi Response
• Allianz Response
• H&L Response
• L&G Response
• New Look Response
• Next Reponse
• SSE Response
• Stagecoach Response
• Standard Chartered Response
• TUI Group Response
• Waitrose Response
• Whitebread Response

More on company responses

Download this PDF for a full list of companies that have responded and those that have been sent the questionaire but are yet to respond. 

We are also encouraging any other companies who weren’t included in our original company list to complete the questionnaire and publicly distance themselves from corporate grouse shooting days.

Background on our Save the Hen Harrier campaign

On the 27th June 2017 the fifth national Hen Harrier survey, conducted by the RSPB, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Scottish Raptor Study Group, found that there are just four breeding pairs left in England.

A shocking figure when compared to the most recent estimate which claims that England has enough habitat for 323-340 breeding pairs. Moreover, the study revealed an 18% decline in breeding pairs across the whole of the UK.

Blame for these low levels of hen harriers is most often attributed to the grouse shooting industry. In order for moorland gamekeepers to keep the population of red grouse artificially high, its natural predators need to be culled, including the protected and endangered Hen Harriers.

Campaign groups and conservationists such as the RSPB LIFE+ project and Raptor Persecution UK, who have been monitoring Hen Harrier via satellite tags, report regular incidences of shot wounds, poisonings and unexplained disappearances of Hen Harriers near grouse moors. 

We began researching and campaigning against grouse shooting over four years ago now. Prompted by the near eradication of Hen Harriers from England’s skies in 2013. A year later we published a report entitled ‘Turn your back on grouse’ which highlighted the greed and intensification that was evident on England's grouse moors. It was clear to us that this damaging practice was one of the chosen pass-times of the UK’s economic elite. 

In May 2017 we updated this report and looked in more detail at the campaigns to see it banned. Download "Turn your back on grouse - three years on".