a goal of promoting the work of gamekeepers and developing training in the area of law and best practices in the field of game management. The SGA chairman is Alex Hogg, a gamekeeper from Scotland. The National Gamekeepers' Organisation In 1997, the National Gamekeepers' Organisation (NGO) was set up for the same reasons and in addition they felt that the main shooting association was not representing the keepers properly. The NGO now has some 15,000 members. The NGO run industry-based training for keepers and were the first organisation to react to EU legislation with regards to game meat hygiene producing a course for experienced keepers and stalkers which had approval from the Food Standards Agency. The NGO continue to promote gamekeeping, stalking, shooting and fishing. Its chairman is Lindsay Waddell, a gamekeeper from Co. Durham. The NGO also have dedicated moorland and deer branches. Criticism The League Against Cruel Sports estimates some 12,300 wild mammals and birds are killed on UK shooting estates every day and sees gamekeepers as playing a key role in the destruction of wildlife. On the other hand, the shooting industry says that gamekeepers are vital wildlife conservation workers in the countryside. The National Gamekeeper's Organisation (NGO) claims that nine times as much of the British countryside is looked after by gamekeepers as is in nature reserves and National Parks. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has criticised the persecution of birds of prey on some shooting estates. 68% of those convicted of raptor persecution are gamekeepers. "We’ve seen evidence linking gamekeepers to bird of prey persecution, and moorlands empty of raptors imply that much more illegal killing goes on undetected". In fiction Alec Scudder in Maurice by E. M. Forster Mellors in Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter series Tom Redruth in Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Phillip White in Lark Rise to Candleford Several characters past and present in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers e.g. Andrew Gach Joseph in Hautot and His Son by Guy de Maupassant William Crowder in The Boscombe Valley Mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Gamekeeper by Barry Hines Kincade in Skyfall Golly Mackenzie in Monarch of the Glen The Gamekeeper at Home by Richard Jefferies - 1878 Robert Muldoon in Jurassic Park Jocelyn Greedon in Doctors Nield in Downton Abbey See also Professional hunter Hunting