Our regular followers will have noticed the absence of posts over the last few months. In keeping with much of the UK we have been dealing with the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on ourselves and our families and friends. However while our attention was focused on health for some it was business as usual. The people, whoever they may be, who illegally persecute wildlife in our countryside saw a golden opportunity to step up their activities while no one was around to see them or discover the signs of their crimes. Sometimes the satellite tags on raptors stopped functioning when they died. Sometimes pet dogs were the victims of poisoned baits but in many cases there was no immediate sign of what was happening. Only now as the public and wildlife monitors return to the countryside is the true scale of the criminality becoming apparent. It is surprising that whilst some of these incidents occurred on or near driven grouse moors the land managers, who were apparently carrying on ‘essential work’, failed to notice them in spite of so few other people being about.

This blog will concentrate on two Scottish parliamentary events that occurred during the lockdown, the banning of moorland burning and the extra protection afforded to mountain hares.

Moorland Burning:

Moorland burning has been a contentious subject for many years, with grouse moor owners and their advocates claiming that as well as being essential for grouse it is also hugely beneficial for the environment. This view seems to disregard the concerns of communities lower down the valleys who often suffer disastrous flooding from burned moors, the damage to early ground nesting birds and the complete destruction of insects, herpetofauna and small mammals who, unable to escape the fire are suffocated by the smoke or burned alive by the flames. The government in Westminster has been discussing a ban on moorland burning for some time but this was apparently delayed because of the pandemic. Many estates continued with burning in spite of pleas from fire services and eventually from The Moorland Association and in spite of the risks to human health of generating large clouds of smoke whilst a respiratory disease was rampant. Eventually moorland burning was stopped in Scotland when the Scottish Parliament banned it, an action that attracted huge anger from the driven grouse industry and its supporters.

It may seem to some that burning a habitat and causing the death of so many creatures is an act of environmental vandalism rather than conservation. It may also seem that continuing with such activities during a pandemic, in spite of pleas from responsible organisations, when all but essential workers are ‘locked down’ is hardly the reaction of people concerned for wildlife, rural communities or their neighbours.

Mountain Hares:

A recent amendment to an act of the Scottish Parliament, proposed by Alison Johnstone a Green MSP and passed by a clear majority seeks to protect the mountain hare, a species in severe decline, from almost industrial scale killing of which it has been the victim on driven grouse moors. The howls of anguish that greeted this were truly astonishing even to seasoned observers of the Scottish countryside scene. Various arguments were put forward against a ban. Some suggested that industrial killing benefits the mountain hare and that the species would die out without it! Others that killing hares in massive numbers prevents the transmission of Lyme disease to humans. Ticks that carry the disease are present in many mammals and birds although strangely those who advocate killing hares seem violently opposed to culling deer which also carry them. The regulations affording protection to mountain hares have not yet passed into law and there have been a number of suggestions on social media and by Dr Colin Sheddon of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation that when the ‘close season’ ends on August the 1^st another organised killing spree will take place.

Whatever one feels about the science of mountain hare killing there must be concern here about parliamentary democracy and who really runs Scotland. The Scottish Parliament has decided by a considerable majority that mountain hares should be protected. The people of Scotland will watch with interest to see what action the Scottish Government takes to ensure that the will of Parliament is followed. It may be that as we write this blog the Environment Minister and Cabinet Secretary are speaking to people within the game shooting industry to ensure that killing will not go ahead spite of the delay in formalising the law. Should we arrive at the end of the ‘close season’ and find that mountain hare killing carries on as usual then we will note the contempt of the driven grouse industry and its supporters for the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish people and Scottish wildlife. We will also feel that the present government has seriously let down those who believed it had a serious interest in protecting Scotland’s natural heritage for all of Scotland’s people.

Coda:

We understand that The Scottish Gamekeepers Association, infuriated by the new regulations, are planning to launch their own political party to stand in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections. We will watch with interest to see what their manifesto contains, who their backers are and how many votes they get. They have not yet announced a name for this new party. Perhaps ‘The Monoculture Alliance’ might fit the bill? 

If you are interested in finding out more about who owns Scotland whilst waiting to see who runs it an excellent book by Green MSP Andy Wightman entitled ‘The Poor Had No Lawyers. Who Owns Scotland (And How They Got It) is well worth a read. Andy also has a website here.

For those of us in England Guy Shrubsole has done similar work with ‘Who Owns England. How We Lost Our Land And How To Take It Back’.

For a general introduction on wildlife crime in Scotland Alan Stewart’s blog and books can be found here

For a view of wildlife crime relating to raptors and the driven grouse shooting industry  ‘Inglorious. Conflict InThe Uplands’ by Mark Avery provides a good introduction.

Up to date information and comment on raptor persecution nationally can be found at the excellent Raptor Persecution UK blog here