The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Views sought on fox hunting act
In 2002, the Scottish Parliament enacted the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act which was aimed primarily at banning fox hunting with dogs.
There were however exceptions to the general prohibition, which continued to allow dogs to be used to stalk, search for and flush out wild mammals for the purposes of pest control and the protection of livestock, provided that once flushed, the mammal was shot.
Furthermore, no offence would be committed if the mammal was killed by dogs during a pest control exercise and it can be demonstrated this was not the huntsman’s intention and was accidental.
Since then, there has been a significant body of opinion that the 2002 Act did not go far enough and that little had in fact changed in practice.
In 2015 the Scottish Government appointed Lord Bonomy to conduct a review of the 2002 Act, and he issued his findings in November 2016. Last week, the Scottish Government put out for consultation a number of his findings and has asked for responses to be submitted by January 31, 2018.
Against this background, it is worth noting that in August this year two Borders huntsmen were the first to be convicted for breaching the 2002 Act by deliberately hunting and killing a fox with dogs.
Last week they intimated they would not be appealing their conviction. Crucial to the conviction of these huntsmen was the use of video evidence against them.
Video evidence purporting to show a gamekeeper setting illegal traps was also fundamental to the decision taken by Scottish Natural Heritage in September this year to impose a restriction on the general licence held by a Perthshire estate in terms of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to control predatory bird species in an effort to protect birds of prey.
In this case, although there was no suggestion that the estate itself had been involved in the setting of illegal traps, the fact that the traps and two poisoned buzzards were found on their land was sufficient to persuade SNH to impose the restrictions on the estate’s general licence. The estate is appealing this decision.
A general licence allows landowners or managers to carry out activities that would otherwise be illegal, such as controlling common species of wild birds by shooting or trapping to protect crops or livestock.
This “light touch” approach to regulation allows people to carry out these activities with minimal bureaucracy. In 2013 changes were introduced to enable restrictions on the use of g eneral licences, including the power to revoke or exclude areas.
Since then two estates have had their general licences revoked. One in respect of a Scottish Borders estate and one in respect of a Stirlingshire estate. If a general licence is restricted, and an appeal unsuccessful, then a land owner can apply for an individual licence to carry out activities that were previously permitted under a general licence.
However in these circumstances the individual licence will be subject to much stricter controls and conditions and monitoring by SNH.
For sporting estates, the management of predators such as raptors and foxes impacts on the success of the sporting season.
Therefore, managing these potential predators without a general licence would be problematic. The greatest concern is likely to be that these predators are attracted to areas with a high density of game birds during the summer and autumn months, when pheasant and partridge poults are being released and during the winter months when other food sources are scarce and released game provide a convenient alternative food source to wild quarry.
These recent cases therefore demonstrate how seriously Police Scotland and SNH treat wildlife crime and what action they are prepared to take, which in turn impacts on the day-to-day management of sporting estates. Kenneth Mackay is head of Thorntons land and rural business team.