16-05-2025
Chris Packham is no saint. He's an environmental extremist to us country folk
But as Lineker gleefully contravenes the BBC's code of conduct, mocks his employers and infuriates the licence fee payer, so Packham's acceptance of sainthood rubs salt in the wounds of his detractors – that is to say, simple country people. Rural folk who have had to tolerate his interventions over the years and whose very livelihoods, in fact, are jeopardised by his posturings.
There are, for example, the gamekeepers, the beaters, the pickers-up whose lives and earnings are dependent on game shooting. While the detractors of country sports make hay by focusing on the guns, they fail to realise that for every rich visitor who is prepared to fork out vast sums of money to shoot the likes of pheasant and partridge, there are those on the ground who make a living from such activities. And they were suffering more attacks from Packham this very week.
Before heading to the Fitzrovia Chapel to have his divinity proclaimed, he paused to launch a new campaign for Animal Aid, of which he is patron, which declares: 'It's time to ban shooting.' In a video, he claims that 'birds of prey are persecuted', suggesting, in between footage of men firing shotguns into the sky, that when the guns aren't aiming at game, they take down 'buzzards, peregrine falcons, golden eagles, hen harriers, red kites and owls'.
This is patent nonsense, of course. I have never attended nor heard of a shoot where anyone would conceive of shooting anything but the intended pheasants, partridge or grouse and the usual mantra uttered by shoot captains during the pre-shoot safety briefing is 'no ground game'.
Packham adds: 'The shooting industry has been part of [Britain's] story of ecological decline and it's been tolerated for far too long.'
He scents blood, relishing the socialist instincts of the Labour Government. If Starmer's crew can take a torch to private education, banning shooting seems an easy win.
Packham dismisses the defence of responsible game shooting: that it contributes to a balanced ecosystem, that it provides healthy, sustainable food, in comparison with the horrors of, say, factory-farmed chicken. He's not interested in its cultural significance, in our freedom to mind our own business, in those jobs. And, of course, it's not just the likes of those who work their dogs to pick up game, whose crusts are earned during the season; there's an entire rural economy that depends upon it, from hospitality – pubs, hotels, chefs and waiting staff – to taxi drivers and shops.
He has similarly targeted driven grouse shooting, currently hustling a petition, whose deadline is May 22. Though while he has gained sufficient numbers (currently 104,168, the threshold for a debate being 100,000) the Government has rebuffed him already, stating it 'has no plans to ban driven grouse shooting. It recognises well-managed grouse shooting can be an important part of a local rural economy, providing direct and indirect employment'.
Then, there's his advocacy for that livestock-endangering, Utopian, untamed fantasy of rewilding, or his campaign against trail-hunting. The latter unrelenting during the season – from autumn to March – with him jollying up his weekends as he joins hunt saboteurs across the country and claiming, ever more hysterically, that legal trail hunters are in fact, 'violent gang[s] of wildlife abusers'.
The reality, of course, being that those who trail-hunt are a peaceful, earnest and united cross-section of community, usually those devoted to animals and the countryside and with large numbers of children engaging in that mind and body-enhancing, screen-free pursuit of horse riding.
Tim Bonner of the Countryside Alliance sums up the contempt many rural people have for Packham in saying that he 'promotes an unjustified and extreme agenda, insults and abuses those with whom he disagrees on how and whether wildlife is managed, which is symptomatic of the animal rights movement, and uses his BBC position to promote those views'.
Yet Packham, granted his stellar position as a lead BBC presenter of shows such as Springwatch, vaunts his role as environmental extremist without a care to the livelihoods and legal pastimes of millions.
As he relishes his elevation to living saint, he might reflect on the precarious lives of the sainted ones. I'm not suggesting that he be stoned, flayed alive or subjected to some upside crucifixion. Simply that in his drive to ban activities that are culturally entrenched in our rural ways of life, he might consider a more saintly approach to the livelihoods he is seeking to destroy.
