Mountain hares could return to iconic moor

The SGA has proposed moving excess animals from grouse moors to Langholm, which lost its population when gamekeepers were removed

Mountain hares from abundant populations on Highland grouse moors could be heading south to help restore the diminished population on Langholm Moor if an offer from the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) is taken up.

A large part of the moor was recently bought from the Duke of Buccleuch by a community group that aims to convert it into a nature reserve (News, 11 November 2020). The group recently advertised two jobs: a £35,000-a-year position for an estate manager and a £40,000-a-year job for a development manager. Among the challenges the newly appointed managers will have to face is that numbers of mountain hares crashed on Langholm Moor after management of the land for grouse ended.

“Mountain hares were common when gamekeepers worked at Langholm. There is potential for a win-win here, for returning lost species, for reserve visitors to enjoy and for getting hares back to favourable conservation status in Scotland,” said

Alex Hogg, chairman of the SGA.

“There is a willingness for gamekeepers to discuss this with the community group and we hope a virtual meeting can take place after they get their feet under the desk.”

From 1 March, gamekeepers in Scotland will be unable to cull mountain hares on grouse moors, where they are found at exceptionally high densities. So the keepers are proposing a novel solution: live trapping the animals and transferring them to sites like Langholm which have lost them.

“Now that the new laws to protect mountain hares are passed, there is no longer an ability to control hare populations on our moors,” said Mark Ewart, coordinator of the Southern Uplands Moorland Group.

“It makes sense to use surplus populations from grouse moors to try to re-establish the species elsewhere, or to build up fragmented populations so they become more resilient.”

Before being displaced by climate and landscape change and the arrival of the brown hare, mountain hares were found across the UK and they have been successfully translocated a number of times in the past. The most notable success was the return, after an absence of many hundreds of years, of mountain hares to the Peak District, where they continue to live on some areas of managed moorland.

Matt Cross

THEY SAID WHAT

“It makes sense to use surplus populations to try to re-establish the species elsewhere”

Mountain hares are now protected, meaning they can no longer be controlled