 This picture from 28th February 2017 shows one morning's work by game keepers on the Farr estate. This truck load of shot Scottish mountain hares could easily have fed a golden eagle for a year. Food for golden eagles late in the winter is often scarce so why let this cull continue? The answer is simple. To allow a few people to shoot c700,000 red grouse a year. The reason that hares are killed is that they pose a threat to the grouse population. Yes, in some places there may be many hares but if you shoot all the foxes, poison the golden eagles - also to protect the grouse - and refuse to consider the reintroduction of the lynx that will be the result.
There is of course an important economic argument here. Rural communities must flourish in Scotland. However the intensive management of Driven Grouse Moors, resulting in the killing of species in huge numbers such as badgers, stoats, weasels, snakes, pine martins, raptors, corvids, foxes, mountain hare - the list goes on - is unsustainable. There will always be a place for hunting and stalking in Scotland, as we understand this is a passion for some people. We certainly have enough red deer for shooting to survive in Scotland but land owners must diversify away from Driven Grouse Shooting. What are the opportunities to do this for Scottish Estates? Well, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust believe that grouse shooting is worth around £23m to Scotland, Visit Scotland's 2015 target for Wildlife and Adventure tourism in Scotland was £849m, with this figure set to rise. The reintroduction of sea eagles to Scotland brings in over £5m a year to the island of Mull alone, supporting 110 jobs. Therefore there surely must be many exciting, financially attractive, reasons to successfully diversify away from Driven Grouse Shooting and use our land in more imaginative ways for the benefit of all wildlife and all people. No more shot, poisoned, trapped or 'hungry' golden eagles and a healthy balanced number of mountain hare is achievable in Scotland through imaginative change of land use.
19 Comments
Kelvin Thomson
4/3/2017 07:21:34 pm
A very good analysis, managed moors are so far from being natural that it's not surprising Mountain Hare numbers can be high. You are right there is a place for hunting, shooting & fishing in Scotland so long as it's done sympathetically, sustainably and ethically. It should not mean the widespread elimination of predatory mammals and the illegal persecution of our raptors! 5/3/2017 04:21:28 pm
I welcome Rewilding Scotlands efforts to redress the balance.
Norman Murray
9/3/2017 08:49:36 pm
What would that be,I don,t see them in Caithness redressing the lack of grouse or managing rising numbers of mountain hares.Do they organise cull numbers of beaver,foxes,badgers or corvids.Rewilding as you call it is a pipe dream meant for an idealistic world which it is not and never will be .So far rewilding projects have been a disaster due to lack of forethought.
Les Wallace
19/6/2017 07:35:42 pm
What rewilding projects have been a disaster exactly - you don't offer any examples strangely enough. What about the unintentional rewilding that's happened in Norway and Slovenia due to people leaving the land or sadly being forced from it (NOT to make space for rewilding)? There are fantatsic projects in patagomia and South Africa where land knackered by over grazing has been brought back to good health by restoring the natural eco system as much as possible and in SA caseespecially has brought in tourism. Expecting that the public will just keep forking over subsidies for those who want to misuse the hills in the name of tradition are the ones who need a reality check. The first time I went abroad it was to Rambouillet in France on a school exchange - there are wolves there now. The second time I went abroad was to Germany on another school trip - we visited the harz mountains - since then there's been a very successful lyn reintroduction that's brought in tourists. In 1990 I was on a youth conservation echange to Hungary. We visited the Aggtelek national park. Since then lynx, wolf and bear have been detected there not because they attacked people or livestock but through camera traps and tracks. The world doesn't have to be idealistic just sane and decent which is what frightens the unreasonable, selfish and backward.
David Mannifield
5/3/2017 04:48:02 pm
I look forward to hearing more and more from this blog and to help wherever I can. Awareness is growing but it needs to grow more yet before the full might of public disgust puts the last nail in the coffin of these practices.
Norman Murray
9/3/2017 08:36:41 pm
There may be more Golden eagles if they stop trying to rehome them in unsuitable areas (Ireland),as far as i,m aware the golden eagle is doing fairly well apart from that.
Rewild Scotland
10/3/2017 04:11:38 pm
Golden Eagles are not doing well in areas of Scotland that have driven grouse shooting.
Les Wallace
19/6/2017 07:46:39 pm
As far as you are aware? There would be more eagles if they weren't being shot and trapped by grouse shooting fanatics, what about the police raid on the Moy Estate that found the rings from FOUR golden eagles in a jar? No conviction or explanation. When there's a reintroduction scheme with eagles they take the second eaglet as quite often that dies from bullying from or competition for food with its older sibling. Placed in new eagle free territory should also mean there's an increased chance it will survive again with less competition. Unfortunately there's been a fair amount of persecution of reintroduced birds of prey in Ireland, poisoning being typical. The field sports people here have been quick to point that out in the rush to push blame from their own sector to those who genuinely are conserving raptors, but funnily enough deny there's any significant persecution here. If there's been any disappointment re golden eagles in Ireland it's not the fault of the conservation orgs involved.You need to be a bit better informed.
VC
10/3/2017 06:04:43 pm
I agree with you completely, especially about wanting to do something to stop this criminal idiocy.
Susan Fairweather
9/3/2017 08:38:06 pm
I disagree with the view that there is 'a place for hunting and stalking' - this type of selfish, cruel & irresponsible slaughter will only disappear when the 'killing for fun' culture is well and truly disposed of. We need laws preventing any so-called 'sport' killing. Invest properly in wildlife tourism and outdoor activities which do not involve killing animals.
Chris burns
10/3/2017 08:27:23 am
I have never seen such a poor article on this subject totally shocking and biased. Rewinding will only ever work if you remove the human population and even then it will result in the demise of some species which you love!
Les Wallace
19/6/2017 07:51:48 pm
Do you think people can't exist amongst or near trees, that they can only survive on over grazed and burnt 'moor'? It was the clearances, carried out for intensive sheep farming that drove people out, exacerbated by driven grouse shooting and open hill deer stalking that kept them off. Wonder how all the species we have managed for thousands of years before we had gamekeepers - will stop blaming keepers when they stop illegally persecuting wildlife and being right up their own arses.
Bobby S
10/3/2017 08:54:56 am
Where are all our Golden Eagles? Our Golden Eagles are doing very nicely as it happens. Numbers are on the increase. So much so, that the RSPB took 70 or so eagles over to Ireland as part of a re-introduction attempt over there, despite being told by people who knew much more about habitat, practices, food sources than they did, that it was a terrible idea. Almost every eagle died. As for the hares, are you aware that your paymasters in SNH have, in the past, requested higher culls of hares in a bid to stop habitat degradation? And had in fact issued licenses to that end. The places where there are few hares (or other wildlife for that matter) to speak of are National Parks managed by rewilding groups. The heather goes rank, nothing lives in it = no food for eagles. Manage the moors, manage the predators = plenty of food for eagles.
Rewild Scotland
10/3/2017 04:06:54 pm
Research by the respected Scottish Raptor Study Group show that the Golden Eagle is not doing well in areas of Scotland where there are driven grouse moors. Even though there is prey species vacant territories are not being filled. You say manage the moors and eagles will be fine. Eagles were doing fine for millennia until the recent invention in Victorian times of driven grouse shooting.
alan
19/6/2017 08:30:15 am
Is that a public document open for peer review.
Keith Morton
20/3/2017 03:51:39 pm
"Doing very nicely"? Well, up to a point, but certainly not on or near the driven moors of the South and East, the areas where they should at their highest breeding densities and be most productive. "Manage the predators"? Well, yes, that does seem to be what is happening!
David Nicholas Hirst B.Sc.
20/3/2017 08:49:29 pm
Driven Grouse Shooting is banned from today.
Tom
20/3/2017 09:25:31 pm
I am sympathetic with much of this article but I would like to hear relevant alternatives to grouse moors than dark plantation confier forest and end farms. I'm all for native forest and the ecosystem services that this can provide like flood mitigation but is this really a country wide alternative? It's all about the money unfortunately.
Les Wallace
19/6/2017 08:12:33 pm
No other country in the world has driven grouse shooting with these massive burnt over 'moors' in spite of the fact the willow grouse which is the same species as our red grouse lives right across northern Europe Asia and America. If it were a good business enterprise and good for wildlife there would be people in Scandinavia, Canada etc tripping over themselves getting driven grouse shooting started. They don't because imposing it on their rural communities would damage them, there would be a riot. Grouse shooting and the open hill deer stalking moved into the vacuum caused by the highland clearances and has kept wildlife and people off the hills since.The public subsidy going to grouse moors could be used for natural flood alleviation which would improve the fishing industry and open up opportunities for proper ecotourism. there are also various types of forestry and although I don't like to see any trees cut for human consumption woodlots for fuel would do a great deal to reduce fuel poverty in the highlands. Mostly no mains gas so heating homes is bloody expensive and wood fuel would be handy. I've got a petition on the go at the moment (google 'Scottish parliament petitions' then click on view petitions it's the driven grouse shooting study one) asking for an impartial and full study of the real economics of driven grouse shooting. If the supporters of driven grouse shooting are sincere in their belief that it is the best option for rural communities they should be rushing to support an impartial study that would prove that. So far as I know not one has. Leave a Reply. |
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