We must stop war on wildlife being waged by shooting estates

Up to an estimated 260,000 animals a year are killed by traps in Scotland alone, writes Robbie Marsland

Over 15 months, a professional surveyor spent 128 days walking 404 square kilometres of land on seven Scottish shooting estates. As he walked, he counted, photographed and recorded the GPS position of traps and snares that were deployed to kill foxes, stoats and weasels. The data from the survey was sent to a recently retired professor of environmental science at Bristol University for analysis.

The analysis revealed that between 120,000 and 260,000 animals are killed each year by these devices in Scotland alone. The analysis also revealed that the more an estate was intensively managed for the shooting of grouse, the more intensive was the killing.

The Scottish Government has a chance to show that they want to end this killing when they respond to a report from the Grouse Moor Management Review Group. Due in the autumn, this response will be able to reference the results of our survey and announce what steps it plans to make to end the circle of destruction that surrounds grouse moors, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals so that more grouse can be shot for “sport”.

The League Against Cruel Sports Scotland commissioned the survey and published the analysis of the data and a summary report, ‘Calculating Cruelty’. The Scottish Gamekeepers Association reacted to the report with scurrilous attacks on the professor who did the analysis, describing, without any explanation, his work as “back of fag-packet calculations and wild extrapolations”.

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), advisers to the shooting industry, had a more measured response. They pointed out that a new type of trap had recently been introduced that made our report “out of date”. They also said that the wide range of management practises on shooting estates made extrapolations “questionable”. Finally, they denied that the purpose of all the killing was for the benefit of increasing numbers of grouse to be shot.

There is a circle of environmental, social and wildlife destruction that surrounds Scottish grouse moors. For an extremely modest return of around £23 million a year, vast swathes of Scotland are managed to produce a surplus of grouse to be shot for sport in the four months after 12 August.

“Managed” in this context mainly involves destruction. The heather is burned, often on deep peat, to provide better habitat for the grouse. Medicated grit is left out in the open in the hope that it will protect the grouse from worms. No one knows what impact the medication has on other flora or fauna. Unplanned tracks and roads scar the landscape and make it easier for the shooters to get about. An average of 26,000 mountain hares are shot each year because it is thought that this protects the grouse from ticks (although there is no science to back this up). Anything that threatens the grouse is described as a pest and destroyed. Hence the huge deployment of effort against foxes, stoats and weasels.

So, what of those comments by the GWCT? Firstly, the introduction of a new type of trap is immaterial. A better way of killing hundreds of thousands of animals so there can be more grouse to shoot is not a solution. It is a distraction from the main event. So too is the suggestion that the variety of levels of manage - ment intensity make extrapolation “questionable”.