THE CONTROVERSIAL VIEWS OF SPRINGWATCH'S CHRIS PACKHAM

[Teddy Bear]

A measure of the intelligence of the BBC presenters. Here's a selection of views which the BBC Springwatch presenter, Chris Packham, holds as sacred.

STOP CHASING THE CURE FOR CANCER, HALT ECONOMIC GROWTH AND LET PANDAS DIE OUT: THE CONTROVERSIAL VIEWS OF CHRIS PACKHAM

On badger culls...

'In spite of science and public will the wrath of ignorance will further bloody and bleed our countryside of its riches of life. That brutalist thugs, liars and frauds will destroy our wildlife and dishonour our nations reputation as conservationists and animal lovers. So I fear that tonight could be the darkest for British wildlife that we have witnessed in our lives.'

On curing cancer...

'There are a lot of wealthy people in the UK who, in the past, would give to things such as medicine and education, but because of the pressure on the environment they’re now thinking of using their excess wealth to protect wildlife. We need to stop chasing cures for cancer and things like that and start realising that the health of the planet goes beyond the health of human beings.'

On the economy...

'If there’s one mantra that we need to break in the next ten years it’s that economic growth is a good thing. It isn’t. It’s a recipe for global disaster.’

On pandas...

'Pandas are my frequent whipping boy,' said Mr Packham, a host of Autumnwatch. Here is a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It's not a strong species. I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go, with a degree of dignity.'

On hunting...

'I can't understand why anyone would want to kill animals for fun, and anybody who does, I think, is psychopathic.'

Yet anybody who would accuse Islamic extremists of being psychopathic would no doubt receive his wrath.

Send him packing! Campaigners demand the BBC sack wildlife presenter Chris Packham over 'slanted and extreme' animal rights views

• Springwatch presenter Chris Packham is outspoken critic of fox hunting
  
• He recently wrote article lambasting wildlife charities for not doing enough
  
• The Countryside Alliance accused Mr Packham of abusing his position
  
• Claimed he was using his job to promote 'blatant political propaganda'

By Keiligh Baker for MailOnline

Countryside campaigners are calling on the BBC to sack Springwatch presenter Chris Packham over his 'slanted and extreme' animal rights views.

Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, accused the BBC of letting Springwatch presenter Packham use the corporation to push his own views.

Veteran nature presenter Mr Packham, an outspoken critic of fox hunting, recently wrote an article for the BBC Wildlife Magazine in which he accused the RSPB and Wildlife Trusts of failing to oppose the return of fox hunting.

He also claimed conservation charities were 'guilty of fence sitting' when it came to looking after wildlife.

The Countryside Alliance, which campaigns on behalf of hunting, shooting and fishing groups, has now accused Mr Packham of abusing his position to promote 'blatant political propaganda.'

As a result Mr Bonner has written a strongly worded open letter which says: 'We call on the BBC to take action as Chris Packham uses it as a platform from which to promote an animal rights agenda.

'Chris Packham is a BBC presenter - we know that because he tells us so in his Twitter biography and because he appears on nearly every BBC programme with any link to wildlife.

'He is a disciple of the animal rights movement and signs up to its creed by voicing his opposition to all the usual activities from badger culling to grouse shooting and, of course, hunting.

'But he has continued to happily use the fame given to him by his work for the BBC to promote an increasingly extreme agenda.

'We are lucky live in a liberal democracy where people are able to hold any number of bizarre views.

'There is no issue with people voicing such opinions, but using the position granted by a public service broadcaster to promote an extreme agenda is a different thing entirely.'

The Countryside Alliance then accused Mr Packham of abusing his position to promote 'blatant political propaganda.'

Mr Bonner continued: 'The new edition of BBC Wildlife magazine carries a column by Chris Packham which is remarkable in that it picks a fight with practically everyone.

'Fox hunters and game shooters, obviously, but also, the National Trust, the Wildlife Trusts and even the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, of which he is vice-president, because they will not join his obsessive crusades.

'This is the clearest possible abuse of the position the BBC has given Chris Packham and as it is an on-going behaviour, rather than an isolated incident, it is difficult to see how the situation can change.

'If it does not, then the BBC's only answer can be to remove the BBC from Chris Packham's biography by refusing to employ him any more.'

Matt Swaine, editor of BBC Wildlife, told The Times: 'Chris Packham is clearly expressing his own views in the column and part of the magazine's role is to be a forum for exactly this kind of discussion.'

He added the magazine will invite the charities mentioned by Mr Packham in his column to reply in their November issue.

A BBC spokesman also told the newspaper: 'If Chris Packham wishes to express his personal views outside of his employment on BBC natural history programmes, he is entitled to do so.

It is not the first time Mr Packham's views have got him into trouble.

In 2013 he found himself in hot water with BBC bosses for using 'intemperate' language when he used social media to describe farmers involved in the badger cull as 'brutalist thugs, liars and frauds'

BBC bosses launched an investigation into the tweets following a complaint by the Countryside Alliance which claimed they went against BBC impartiality rules.

It found that Mr Packham breached a BBC voluntary code of conduct as the tweets were not politically neutral.

He once warned the only way to protect the future of the planet is to curb population growth and suggested offering Britons tax breaks to encourage them to have smaller families.

He also called for the giant panda to be allowed to die out, claiming the species is not strong enough to survive on its own and that the millions spent preserving it could be better spent elsewhere.

[charmbrights]

I must confess that I can understand Packham's point on giant pandas. Throughout the time life has existed on this planet some species have succeeded and others have become extinct. It now seems to be policy of conservationists that we have an entirely suitable range of species and so it must be frozen for ever and no species must ever be allowed to die out in future "in order to preserve genetic diversity". Oh, but they allow the smallpox virus to be (almost) exterminated as it isn't very nice, and presumably the Ebola virus is exempt from preservation (unless the military find a use for it).

[Teddy Bear]

Never watched Chris Packham, or any of his programmes, but judging by the criticisms levelled at him in this Telegraph article by Robin Page, he certainly fits the usual BBC mindset.

'Prada-wearing Chris Packham knows nothing of the countryside'
The BBC’s Chris Packham is a suburban man in a muddle who is rude about real country people, according to Robin Page

By Robin Page

For some time now it has seemed to me that the Countryside Alliance (CA) has lost the plot. With cereal, milk and livestock prices at rock bottom, overpopulation and an affordable housing crisis – what rocks the CA boat? Broadband and giving a countryside-illiterate Tory Government an easy ride. Oh for Robin Hanbury-Tenison or Richard Burge to come back on the scene – two former and very successful directors of the CA.

Now, at last, the CA has woken up to the presence of Chris Packham, following a nonsensical article he wrote in the September issue of BBC Wildlife magazine on foxes, hen harriers etc – all the usual stuff. I think it can be called the Packham Loop – what other magazine would print such nonsense? Packham, Guardian columnist George Monbiot and Mark Avery (former conservation director of the RSPB) should become known as the Three Unwise Men of Conservation. If their opinions are ever put into practice, then most of Britain’s wildlife is doomed.

The CA want Packham sacked for his “obsessive crusades”. Though his July Wildlife article was even worse (why were you silent then, CA?). I have found Packham unwatchable on BBC Springwatch and Autumnwatch for years, a view shared with numerous readers of this column. Beautiful pictures but inane commentary and comments. He started out on children’s television and in my view Springwatch is more aimed at children than adults. What the programme displays, more than anything else, is Packham’s enormous vanity – a man who walks through the countryside, as opposed to working in it, with comb, mirror, Prada T-shirts and instant sound-bite.

To me, he is the purveyor of countryside myths – myths that suit the BBC’s suburban/animal rights agenda; myths that allow him to abuse country people on Springwatch/Autumnwatch programme, in his regular vitriolic magazine articles, and on social media. (When the pilot badger cull started, to help cattle owners combat bovine TB, Packham tweeted that the farmers involved were “brutalist thugs, liars and frauds”.) I’m a moderate – I would not only sack him, I would sack his editors too. I would also suggest he sign up for an anger management course.

Kind readers have sent me some interesting material over recent weeks. The first was an article about birds of prey that appeared in The Guardian in May. Packham was quoted at length. Apparently I upset him over an earlier article I had written concerning buzzards and kites. It was, according to Packham, “an idiotic, ill-informed rant [pot calling kettle?] by someone with no qualified understanding of even basic ecology”. How arrogant, how elitist, how BBC Bristol. He went on: “Nature regulates its own populations if we allow it and we are still outrageously short of top predators.”

Isn’t it odd – Packham has a very similar view of Britain to those who want to allow fracking, who seem to think that we live in a land of millions of empty acres instead of in one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Then, not satisfied with abusing me and my lack of education, in the July issue of BBC Wildlife he abused all country people. He thinks there is no difference between towns- people and country people. Does he know any real country people?

“As a conservationist,” he wrote, “there are two things I have come to loathe above all else – 'country lore’ and 'tradition’.” What a confession of bigotry. Doesn’t he understand, for example, the science behind this particular piece of weather-lore: “Rain before seven, gone by eleven”? It is based on what is now seen as accurate scientific observation, like much country lore and tradition.
There is more. He says: “I’m a fully paid-up member of this newfangled thing we’ve got called science and it’s about truth.” Excuse me, isn’t this the same Chris Packham who is in a state of denial about badgers having a serious impact on hedgehog populations, a fact confirmed by several scientific studies and Prof Pat Morris, whom Mr Packham will be pleased to know has the required academic degrees?

I would suggest that this walking example of “raptor-rapture” should read some scientific papers. How about “The Role of the Eurasian Sparrowhawk in the Decline of the House Sparrow in Britain”, written by Dr Christopher Bell and colleagues. Yes Chris, all with the appropriate degrees to impress you.

Then there’s this absolute corker: “Postfledging Survival, Movements, and Dispersal of Ring Ouzels” by Dr Sonja Ludwig and colleagues from Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities, as well as the RSPB, proving serious predation of fledgling ring ouzels by buzzards on moorland in Scotland. What do you think about that, Mr Packham? I hope to be examining some of the report’s findings in a Diary at the end of the grouse shooting season in December.

Finally, the great man says that “we are actively conserving lapwings”. How does he do it if he is now saying that foxes should not be controlled? To me Chris Packham is not a man on a mission; he is a suburban man in a muddle.