Grouse moors throughout Scotland might be required to carry licences and will face capturing bans as a part of radical measures to fight fowl of prey persecution handed by MSPs on Thursday.
The Scottish parliament voted for the controls amid intense strain from conservation scientists and campaigners after a long time of unlawful assaults on birds of prey by gamekeepers instructed to guard grouse on capturing estates from being eaten.
The wildlife administration and muirburn invoice features a ban on snaring of foxes and rabbits in Scotland, the licensing of muirburn – the method the place heather is selectively burned to supply shoots for grouse to eat – and the licensing and tagging of traps used to catch crows, weasels, moles and stoats.
Jim Fairlie, the agricultural affairs minister and a former hill farmer, mentioned its measures “would shield our wildlife, help our rural companies and shield our iconic moorlands”. It could “finish the stain and the disgrace of raptor persecution and [allow] animal welfare to be on the forefront of accountable land administration”.
He informed MSPs grouse moor licensing, beneficial in 2019 by an inquiry chaired by Prof Alan Werritty, was wanted as a result of the capturing trade had failed, regardless of repeated warnings, to police itself by “shutting down” the perpetrators identified to be persecuting birds of prey. “So now it’s as much as us,” he mentioned.
Hours earlier than the vote it emerged that police had been investigating the unexplained disappearance of one other satellite-tagged hen harrier, a fowl of prey routinely focused for persecution by gamekeepers, on grouse moors within the Angus Glens close to Dundee.
The Royal Society for the Safety of Birds mentioned the fowl, referred to as Shalimar, was the fourth hen harrier to go lacking, together with a golden eagle and a white-tailed eagle, in an space “infamous” for persecution. It had been tagged on the Nationwide Belief for Scotland’s Mar Lodge property final yr.
Shalimar’s tag abruptly stopped sending out indicators on 15 February; a search of the realm by Police Scotland, the Nationwide Wildlife Crime Unit and RSPB investigations employees had didn’t find both the fowl or its tag.
Ian Thomson, RSPB Scotland’s head of investigations, mentioned: “Whereas these provisions have come simply too late to forestall Shalimar changing into the most recent hen harrier to seemingly disappear by the hands of criminals, we hope the brand new laws will assist to consign raptor persecution to the historical past books in Scotland.”
Grouse moor homeowners and gun sports activities our bodies argue licensing goes too far, saying it can harm a fragile trade that helps hundreds of rural jobs. Additionally they mentioned persecution incidents had been uncommon and remoted.
Scottish Land and Estates, which represents landowners, and the Scottish Gamekeepers Affiliation mentioned banning snaring would imply extra endangered ground-nesting birds could be eaten by predators.
Rachael Hamilton, an MSP with the Scottish Conservatives – the one celebration to vote in opposition to the invoice – mentioned the extent to which ministers had “ignored proof and sidelined science has been frankly astonishing”. Solely 4 incidents had been recorded final yr, the bottom on latest report. Ministers had proven “disdain for evidence-based policymaking”, she mentioned.
RSPB knowledge data 488 fowl of prey persecution incidents in Scotland from 2007 to 2022, concentrated round grouse moors within the Highlands and southern uplands, together with capturing, poisoning, snaring, trapping and nest destruction.
Its investigators consider scores of different killings have been undetected as a result of proof was destroyed; an knowledgeable research on golden eagles in Scotland discovered they didn’t roost or breed in giant areas of the Highlands populated by capturing estates.
This article by Severin Carrell was first printed by The Guardian on 21 March 2024. Lead Picture: The tag of hen harrier Shalimar abruptly stopped sending out indicators on 15 February. {Photograph}: RSPB.
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