Following our guest blogs from two ex-gamekeepers putting their views on wildlife crime we wanted to do a small follow up.

Firstly we would like to thank the two individuals for their input. It will not have made them popular within the shooting world and indeed we have had a number of posts of such vitriol and expressed in such obscene language that we have had to temporarily abandon our policy of publishing all the non-criminal comments that we get.

The main point that we got from these two blogs is that both individuals felt that driven grouse shooting has a business model that makes it very difficult if not impossible to obey the law and be profitable. This agrees broadly with our personal experience of speaking to gamekeepers, estate managers and shooting agents around the UK. It is certainly the case that in some country areas driven grouse estates are the main employer but this is not an excuse to ignore criminality. There are estates in some parts of the country where drug gangs are the main employer but few suggest we should ignore their criminality.

Expensive campaigns on social media, letters to newspapers, pressure on police forces and officers, threats, bullying and bribes will not change the situation. These people will try almost anything to conceal what they do and escape the consequences. The only thing that they will not do is change their behaviour. Only a rigorously enforced licensing regime will start to bring an end to this organised rural crime wave.

Action this day.