News

PURDEY AWARDS FOR GAME AND CONSERVATION 2005

18th November 2005

to be presented by Kate Hoey MP, Chairman of the Countryside Alliance
at 6.30 pm on Thursday 17th November 2005
at James Purdey & Sons, 57 – 58 South Audley Street, London W1K 2ED

Winner - Geoff Eyre
Howden Regeneration Project, Howden and Derwent Moors, Bamford, Derbyshire


Winner

Geoff Eyre’s Howden Regeneration Project, lying within the Peak District National Park has won first prize in the 2005 Purdey Awards for Game and Conservation. Geoff Eyre will receive a cheque for £5,000, the Purdey Awards Shield, an initialled Purdey leather cartridge bag, and a Jeroboam of Laurent-Perrier Champagne. These will be presented by Kate Hoey MP, Chairman of the Countryside Alliance, at this year’s awards ceremony which takes place on 17th November in the Long Room at the South Audley Street headquarters of James Purdey & Sons Ltd.

Geoff Eyre was awarded the top prize because the judges considered the project to restore the 6600 acres of National Trust owned Howden and Derwent Moors from barren once overgrazed white grass and bracken in 1989, to heather covered moorland supporting a stable population of red grouse, demonstrated not only vision and determination, but scientific innovation in terms of creating and successfully proving new and unique methods of heather regeneration.

Geoff Eyre achieved his objectives as a result of single minded focus, his being willing to devote so much time to the project, and to invest not insignificant sums of his own money. He also won support for the project from his landlord, the National Trust, who paid for the fencing, and he qualified for ESA conservation grants. To have achieved such a transformation on an area of National Trust land which is also one of England’s most popular public open spaces for visitors, walkers, ramblers and bird watchers, ( the Fairholme Visitors Centre attracts two million visitors a year) is all the more remarkable!

Since starting on his project in 1989 Geoff Eyre has become widely acknowledged as a leading expert on heather regeneration. He was awarded an honorary doctorate for his research into heather regeneration by Liverpool University. The Howden Project is the largest single area of heather regeneration in the UK, and not surprisingly Geoff has lectured on the subject to a wide variety of people and organisations, including other moor owners, DEFRA, English Nature, FWAG, and even the WI!

Geoff Eyre’s ‘modus operandi’ starts with the cutting, burning and wiping of Molinia, (having overcome initial reservations from English Nature), followed by sowing heather seed treated by his own processes to improve its germination and against attack by midge larvae, a problem which he had also identified. To allow large scale heather seed collection he has developed machines of his own design, including self-propelled vehicles, and built seed applicators and sprayers. On some of the steeper slopes the sowing of heather seed was done by helicopter.

The benefits to biodiversity have been impressive. There has been a significant increase in the populations of pipits, skylarks, golden plover, curlew, ring-ouzel, snipe, short-eared owls and lapwings, as well as blue/white hares. Goshawks are now the most prevalent amongst birds of prey. 30 black game have been released and a lek established, while areas of wetland have been introduced, though as yet it is too early to show quantifiable results for these. As the icing on the cake, Geoff is able to offer his syndicate ten days grouse shooting a year. Recent annual bags have been 400 – 600 brace.


Richard Purdey, Chairman of James Purdey & Sons, said, ‘Our judges voted Geoff Eyre’s Howden and Derwent Heather Regeneration Project into first place because it encompasses every facet of what our Awards are about. Without major financial backing Geoff has succeeded in restoring almost 7000 acres of barren moorland. In doing so he has demonstrated the successful development and application of his scientific approach to reseeding heather, the return of a shootable red grouse population, and achieved a huge improvement in biodiversity. The public who walk the area will have seen a progressive transformation from bracken and white grass to heather, and far more bird and wild life, while other moor owners are also benefiting from the knowledge gained by Geoff Eyre’s research. This is an exemplary project - and on a large scale.’

Second Prize Winner
The Trent Shoot, near Sherborne, Dorset, entered by shoot captain Stuart Casely, is awarded Second Prize, a cheque for £2000 and a Magnum of Laurent-Perrier Champagne.

The Trent Shoot receives second prize on account of its combination of providing top quality shooting with modest bags, first class management, and actively involving its local community in all aspects of the shoot and its extensive conservation work.

The shoot covers 2000 acres across four tenant farms belonging to the Ernest Cook Trust, and surrounding the Dorset village of Trent. It is run by three of the farming tenants, led by Stuart Casely. They shoot six days a year, sharing out the duties of shoot captain, keeper and host between them. No days are let – and none of the hosts shoot, it is run purely for their guests. Dorset is not a part of the country which can sustain an all wild bird population, though wild broods are far from a rarity, so 1200 pheasants are reared and released to offer average bags of 60 – 70 head.

The keepering is divided out amongst the three farmers, one looking after covert crops, another the release pens and fencing, and the third the pheasants, and organising the all volunteer teams of beaters and pickers up.

The Finalists

As in the six previous years of the Purdey Awards the panel of judges, chaired by The Marquess of Douro, were presented with an extremely difficult task in deciding on the eventual winners given the overall quality, and wide disparity of the ten finalists. From the field of nineteen entries received by the closing date of 23rd May ten entries were selected in June to receive site visits from members of the panel. These included no less than three grouse moors, one the eventual winner in Derbyshire, and two in North Yorkshire, five pheasant shoots, from Devon to Morayshire, and two wild fowl shoots, one on Cardigan Bay, the other on Shapinsay in the Orkneys Isles!

Having between them travelled several thousand miles to inspect the finalists the judges reconvened in October to receive the reports of the individual judging teams. Only after discussion and careful consideration of the relative merits of each entry, and how they relate to the criteria of the Purdey Awards, do the judges cast their votes and thus determine the order of another years entries.

In recognition of their achievement in having reached the top ten of the Purdey Awards each finalist will be presented with a signed Certificate and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Champagne by Kate Hoey MP.

This year, as in previous years, the judges have also had at their discretion the opportunity to make Special Awards. These are given only to those who in their opinion stand out from the finalists as having made exceptional individual contributions to the overall quality of their entry. In 2005 two such Special Awards have been made. These are as follows:-



Special Awards 2005

Jimmy Shuttlewood, Head Keeper, Snilesworth Moor, Hawnby, North Yorkshire

Jimmy Shuttlewood receives a Special Award of £500 for his work as Head Keeper at Snilesworth Moor to which he came six seasons ago at the start of its restoration.

Snilesworth is another remarkable story of the restoration of a run down grouse moor by a combination of substantial and well spent investment, unremitting hard work and sound principles of grouse and moorland management. The lease of the moor is held by American grouse enthusiast Bob Cieslukowski, and its management is contracted to J M Osborne & Co. Within just six seasons annual grouse bags, starting from under one hundred brace, now show signs of being able consistently to exceed all previous records for this moor, 1500 to 1800 brace being a realistic current target. The judges were also of the view that the best is still to come given the relatively early stage of the project.

As with all such operations the success of Snilesworth is a team effort, but much of the credit is due to Jimmy Shuttlewood, head keeper since the year 2000. He has worked tirelessly to burn and renew great areas of Snilesworth’s old and overgrown heather, to control its over populous vermin, and nurturing its new and growing population of red grouse. He has done so in an irrepressibly enthusiastic and good humoured manner supported by his wife and young family, and a kennel full of Labradors and Spaniels too numerous to count! He has also actively encouraged the local community, through holding open days, to see how good grouse moor management benefits biodiversity as well as the local economy.

As can so often happen in grouse moor management disaster struck earlier this year when a storm of tropical intensity struck North Yorkshire, with its epicentre over the nearby village of Hawnby, which itself suffered serious damage to properties but mercifully no fatalities. Snilesworth Moor was devastated by the ensuing floods. Such was the ferocity of the storm that literally within minutes the run off turned the ghylls below the moor, normally shallow three to four foot wide streams, into raging rapids, in places up to fifteen feet deep. Several bridges and roads were washed away, and fatalities among the grouse, were such as to halve the moor’s prospects for the current season.

Within less than a week Bob Cieslukowski was on site to put in place the strategy for recovery operations. Head keeper Jimmy was at the forefront of the working parties, and incredibly, within a month, little evidence remained of any damage, so that the casual visitor could be forgiven for thinking reports of the storm to have been exaggerated.

In recognition of his exceptional keepering skills and the remarkable achievement of the restoration of Snilesworth, now considered to be capable of becoming one of the top grouse moors in the United Kingdom, the Purdey judges have made Jimmy Shuttlewood a Special Award of £500, together with an initialled leather cartridge bag, and a Magnum of Laurent Perrier Champagne.

Alan Crossland, Voluntary Keeper at Mundole Farm, Forres, Morayshire

Alan Crossland receives a Special Award of £500 in recognition of the enthusiasm and application he has brought to bear in his new found role as the voluntary keeper of a small syndicate shoot on the outskirts of the Morayshire town of Forres, in north east Scotland.

The contrast to his previous life could not be greater. Alan spent the whole of his previous working life, more than thirty years, as a miner at the coal face, deep underground at Selby Pit. Three years ago he was able to take early retirement as a result of chronic respiratory problems and white finger (from operating heavy vibrating machinery), and moved to Morayshire. Here he was able to pursue his lifelong love of shooting and conservation by voluntarily keepering for a small syndicate shoot at Mundole Farm.

Although the Mundole Shoot has only been going since 2003 it was clear that Alan has been the major driving force in establishing two new release pens, creating rides through the farm’s extensive woodlands and a new flighting pond for duck close to the banks of the River Findhorn. Mundole Farm Shoot is still too early in its development as a project to judge its longer term success. However the energy of its new keeper, his enthusiasm, his willingness to listen and learn, and his heartfelt appreciation of the change from working overground as opposed to underground is a great advertisement for the simple pleasures of life to be found in abundance in conservation and shooting.

The Purdey Awards for Game and Conservation are now in their seventh year, the sponsorship having been taken over in 1999 by James Purdey & Sons from Laurent Perrier Champagne, who initiated the annual competition in 1985. The Panel of Judges is chaired by the Marquess of Douro, and the competition is organised and run by Richard Purdey, Chairman of James Purdey & Sons, in close cooperation with The Game Conservancy Trust.

Laurent Perrier UK continue to give their encouragement and support to the Awards by generously donating their champagne to the winners and the champagne for the Awards presentation ceremony.
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