Grouse shooting is killing natural habitats say campaigners
Scottish animal welfare charity OneKind has renewed its calls for an end to driven grouse shooting on the Glorious Twelfth, the first day of the grouse shooting season.
Large areas of upland Scotland are used for driven grouse shooting with the land being managed to maximise the number of red grouse available for shooting.
To keep red grouse numbers as high as possible, gamekeepers routinely kill predators such as foxes and stoats, undertake large-scale mountain hare culls and, on some estates, illegally persecute birds of prey, such as hen harriers and golden eagles.
OneKind director, Bob Elliot, said that there is nothing glorious about a day marking the killing of large numbers of birds and other wildlife.
“Wildlife culling is carried out all year round, on an enormous scale, to eradicate predators from the moors," he said. "These animals can be legally trapped, shot and snared in Scotland’s countryside with very little in the way of public scrutiny, inspection, or regulation by the authorities.
“It’s time we said enough is enough and called on the Scottish Government to reform and address the intensive management of Scotland’s grouse moors and end the indiscriminate killing of our wildlife.”
It comes as Labour said it would launch a review into grouse shoots and consider replacing them with wildlife tourism and “simulated shooting” if elected in the next general election.
Referring to the shooting season as the “Inglorious Twelfth”, the party claims there is “extensive evidence” that grouse moors are “destroying huge swathes of plant life and killing many animals.”
Gamekeepers say any moves to ban grouse shooting would put livelihoods at risk and cause significant damage to rural landscape.
Grouse shooting contributes round £32m to the Scottish economy and supports about 2,640 jobs, said the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group.
