'Sack eco warrior Packham', BBC is told as countryside campaigners including Sir Ian Botham rally against Springwatch presenter Chris and his outspoken attacks on hunting

Countryside campaigners are calling for the BBC to sack Springwatch presenter Chris Packham, claiming his outspoken attacks on hunters and shooters breach impartiality rules.

The TV star was the subject of complaints after he described hunters and shooters as ‘the nasty brigade’ last year.

Now The Mail on Sunday can reveal the BBC Trust has launched an investigation into the presenter which may decide his future at the Corporation.

Bird is the word: Countryside campaigners are calling for the BBC to sack Springwatch presenter Chris Packham

Despite the probe, a defiant Packham has been calling for a ban on grouse shooting ahead of the start of the grouse season on Friday – the ‘Glorious Twelfth’.

Sir Ian Botham has also questioned Mr Packham’s impartiality, suggesting he should be told to ‘spend more time with the birds – away from the cameras’.

Simon Hart, MP and Countryside Alliance chairman, has asked the BBC Trust to take action against the presenter. 

In a letter to the Trust, Mr Hart said: ‘We cannot stand by and continue to allow Mr Packham to use the status the BBC has given him to spread propaganda.’

Tim Bonner, Alliance chief executive, said: ‘He is in breach of BBC guidelines and it cannot continue to promote someone who is so willing to campaign on such a range of extreme and controversial issues.’

Packham has been calling for a ban on grouse (file picture) shooting ahead of the start of the grouse season

The Trust’s editorial standards committee met in July to discuss complaints from the Alliance and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) against Mr Packham. A decision is due in September.

BBC rules say external activities of presenters should not undermine public perception of the impartiality, integrity or independence of BBC output.

In 2013 Mr Packham tweeted that farmers involved in a badger cull were ‘brutalist thugs, liars and frauds’ and was censured by the BBC for the ‘not politically neutral’ remarks.

Mr Packham’s views have made him a target on social media. Threats made on Twitter are being investigated by Hampshire Police.

A BBC spokesman said Mr Packham was ‘entitled’ to express views outside of his employment on BBC Natural History programmes.

Mr Packham did not respond to requests for comment.

Just fly off our screens, Chris - and spend a lot more time with the birds

By Sir Ian Botham

Toxic… psychopathic… evil: that’s how Chris Packham describes grouse moors and the food they produce. This is the same Chris Packham who says we should be not be spending money on ‘chasing cures for cancer’ but instead put it into the ‘health of the planet’.

It’s certainly emotive. Yet being on the extreme fringe of a debate does not sit well with being a balanced TV presenter. For all Chris’s charm and enthusiasm he can not be convincingly neutral.

His stream of outbursts – a sort of eco-Tourettes – drags down confidence in the Corporation among rural communities.

He ruffles more feathers than Jeremy Clarkson and is damaging the reputation of the BBC’s wildlife team for impartiality.

Cricket legend and country sportsman Sir Ian Botham says Chris Packham is damaging the reputation of the BBC

When next month the BBC Trustees announce their solution to their Chris Packham problem, they may tell him to spend more time with the birds, away from the cameras.

That would be sensible for the BBC and helpful in healing the polarised debate about the countryside, where wildlife protection needs practical collaboration between conservationists and landowners.

Chris has plenty of work to do as a campaigner. He is vice-president of the RSPB and the rallying point for a small group of angry bird activists who need leadership because all they do is sit at their computers ranting about birdlife.

I love debating the tough choices we face in managing nature with these campaigners when they have hard evidence rather than speculation.

Yet they confuse tweeting for conservation. Twitter may have a bird symbol – but posting a tweet does nothing to help birds.

What does help is the hard work of creating great habitat and protecting birds from predators.

Let me playfully raise the blood pressure of these tweetaholics by saying that the best friends of Britain’s endangered wild birds are gamekeepers.

The facts speak for themselves. British Trust for Ornithology ringers have just conducted a survey of a grouse moor in the Pennines. They found 800 pairs of lapwing, 400 curlews and 100 golden plover on one estate. There were 89 species – 21 of them endangered ‘red list’ birds. Another grouse moor in Scotland has 81 species. This is bird heaven.

The RSPB’s scientists admit that grouse moors are the best breeding grounds for birds, saying that there are up to five times more endangered birds on grouse moors than on other moors. So if the activists who run the RSPB had their way and forced grouse moors to shut down it would be devastating for Britain’s endangered birds. This is the inconvenient truth that the tweeters are in denial about.

What is the point of an RSPB that does not protect birds? It is the over-fed cuckoo in the nest of bird conservation devouring resources other groups would love.

Officials are wondering how they can justify giving millions of taxpayers money to an RSPB that lectures but never listens.

Nature does have a voice, and it is not the RSPB. The birds are speaking by flocking to grouse moors where millions of them flourish along with grouse – Britain’s ultimate free range food.

The grouse I will shoot next week live all their lives in the wild. By contrast the chickens we eat typically live only six weeks in cramped conditions before they are slaughtered.

My message to the self-righteous bird activists is simple. The grouse on my plate will have lived a far better life than the chicken on theirs.