BREAKING NEWS…..
This morning the Scottish Government has introduced its long-promised grouse shooting bill, formally known as the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Bill.
This draft legislation is a direct result of the game-shooting industry’s failure to stop illegally killing birds of prey on many Scottish grouse moors. That was the trigger, and there are also now other aspects to the Bill that are an attempt to tackle other poorly-regulated aspects of unsustainable grouse moor management.
The Bill contains provisions to:
- Ban the use and purchase of glue traps and introduce licensing and training requirements for certain other types of wildlife traps;
- Introduce a licensing regime for land used for the shooting of red grouse;
- License all muirburn; and
- Introduce enabling powers to allow the Scottish Ministers to extend the role of inspectors appointed under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 to investigate certain wildlife offences.
As it has only just been published, I haven’t had time to read it properly or analyse its contents. I’ll comment further in due course.
Scottish Government has provided this overview:
Now the Bill has finally been introduced, this is how it will progress through Parliament over the coming months. There will be plenty of opportunity for comment on, and amendments to, this Bill.
Here are the all important documents:
The Bill, as introduced:
Scottish Government’s Explanatory Notes:
Scottish Government’s Policy Memorandum (i.e. explaining why the Bill has been created):
Raptor Persecution UK 
About time. But it demonstrates the grip on our societies, of the establishment, and their favourite hobby, driven grouse shooting has, that even in devolved Scotland, it has taken so long, in the face of so much evidence. Informed people have known for a long time that the illegal killing of raptors by the driven shooting industry was far more widespread than the shooting industry admits to. However, it is only the increase in radio/satellite tagging in the last decade, that has demonstrated, just how widespread it is, and how efficient it is. With very strong circumstantial evidence that it’s not merely widespread, but could be happening on most managed shoots, to some extent. I strongly suspect, that it is not a question of whether it happens on most managed shoots. That only the effort and extent of it, may vary.
It is the efficiency, with which radio tagged birds are killed, which points to how much effort and coordinated action shooting estates are putting into killing raptors. As any birder or bird photographer knows, the chance of a raptor randomly flying within 50m (shotgun maximum range – in reality closer) you by chance, is very slim. To kill mobile raptors with this efficiency, does not involve a gamekeeper simply wandering around, and taking the odd potshot at raptors which fly within range, because they rarely would. It means spending a huge amount of time, effort and strategy to enable this. For a gamekeeper to spend this much time and effort on just this task, means everyone involved in shoot management, knows very well, what is going on. The shooting industry, has been trying to gaslight us to believe, this is the odd bad apple. But again, the very strong circumstantial evidence is, that not only is it standard practice, but the whole industry has known this for decades.
Once again, it is implausible in the extreme, that gamekeepers, and other estate workers, employees, could devote so much time to this task, with such efficiency, that their employers, could be unaware of what is going on. The whole industry has been gaslighting us about the way this takes place. I use the term gaslighting, because the whole industry has been trying to convince us that it was only the odd bad apple. But they all most of known that this simply wasn’t true.
Very well said Stephen. It has struck me on many occasions that one of the few things which birders and keepers must have in common, albeit with greatly differing objectives, is the capacity to patiently wait for lengthy spells until the target species comes into view. One key difference, of course, is that keepers are paid to spend their time this way, whereas us birders generally are not!
Well said Stephen, I would concur with all you have said in your response to this matter.
Hallelujah! But the devil, of course, will be in the detail… especially concerning the licensing conditions…. and their likely efficacy.
I don’t suppose for one moment they will have taken on board my second suggestion of basing the license on an all-encompassing, ecological audit of the shooting estate’s environment:-(
(My first suggestion was to simply ban shooting)
I agree with you, especially about the licensing conditions. Sadly I doubt they’ll be stringent enough or easy enough to enforce to completely stop the killing of raptors. However this Bill should be seen as a positive step forward. Once there’s a licensing scheme in place it’ll be easier to try and persuade the government to tighten the conditions of a license. If licensing fails to solve the problem then pressure will increase on the government for an outright ban.
It’ll be interesting to see how many SNP MSPs, especially those representing rural constituencies, rebel and vote against the bill. I can’t see any reason why Labour or the Lib Dems will oppose the bill, apart from playing political games and trying to inflict a defeat on the new First Minister, so it should pass even with some rebels from the SNP.
“I can’t see any reason why Labour or the Lib Dems will oppose the bill…”
I very much doubt that Labour would oppose it (other than to strengthen it) but the Scottish Lib Dems voted solidly to oppose ANY strengthening of the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002 in the recent Hunting with Dogs Bill… along with the Tories, of course:-(
It may well split the SNP (to some degree) but the Greens will support it (along with amendments to strengthen it).
If you ban shooting the estates could sell off the land for wind farms or commercial forestry .You want to be careful what you wish for.
Neither would be worse for wildlife than the current situation, whilst having some benefits.
I believe that wind farms, at least, would be subject to planning permission, as would forestry infrastructure:-)
https://forestry.gov.scot/forestry-strategy#:~:text=Scotland's%20Forestry%20Strategy%202019%20to,environmental%20benefits%20to%20Scotland's%20people.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/onshore-wind-policy-statement-2022/#:~:text=Sets%20out%20our%20ambition%20to,an%20onshore%20wind%20sector%20deal.
Is there a particular reason why the draft bill refers to SNH rather than NatureScot?
Yes, Dave. See Point 9 in the Explanatory Notes doc. It reads:
‘Note, the Bill and the Notes make reference to Scottish Natural Heritage. It is a statutory body established by Section 1 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991. Following a rebranding in 2020, Scottish Natural Heritage is now known as NatureScot. Its formal legal name remains unchanged however and so it is by that name that it is referred to in the Bill’.
Does the bill mention carcass disposal, ‘stink pits’, lead shot, and risks of disease (currently Bird Flu, but who knows what the future holds).
ABOUT BLOODY TIME TOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And meanwhile in Westminster…? What is happening there with Moorland mis-management? Raptor killing?
I love it when folk (many of whom are probably anti-SNP and anti-Scottish independence) get so angry on here about how long it’s taking to do something about the issue in Scotland – when they (to be consistent) should be arguing for Scotland to be in… what’s the term? ‘lock-step’ with England. Which would mean we would be doing absolutely nothing about raptor killing and the misuse of so much land – because there are no moves to do anything about it at a party political level in England. And, by the looks of things with Keir Starmer’s veering to the Dully Mail readership, there won’t be much chance of Labour tackling the issue IF it gets into power.
My initial reaction is too little, too late.
Grousemoor muirburn does not improve biodiversity, it creates a monoculture of heather.
Claims that it improves biodiversity are gaslighting – how do they think biodiversity came about in the first place? Biodiversity is not grouse plus a few Golden Plovers, and maybe a couple of Curlew. It means a full range of flora and fauna; dare I say it not just raptors, but Juniper, Scots Pine and Birch at lower levels.
I struggle with some research saying Muirburn heather captures more carbon because the extra carbon it captures after 10 years goes up in smoke again after 10 years.
There is no mention of medicated grit. Continual medication allows pathogens to build up immunity which renders those medications useless in the long term.
Finally no mention of grouse moors being used as pheasant and partridge shoots. “Oh we’re not shooting grouse so we don’t need a licence, even if some healthy raptors disappeared on our shoots”.
Let us hope the committee stages strengthen the conditions.
Section 12A(6)(c) – dealing with the avoidance of by-catch in traps – looks to me to be something of a can of worms. There needs to be some standardisation of approach to what is acceptable as preventative measures regarding non-target species.
Fully agree with Max elsewhere that this is an opportunity missed for banning snares. We are only at the Bill stage so there should be scope for introducing an appropriate amendment to rectify this omission.
Currently, they just burn what they want, where they want. If we are lucky, the code might be an after thought. They are starting to think about peatland (mainly to work out how to get around the code), but the code is much wider than peatland. The code sets out many other habitats and situations where burning should not take place that it is normal practice to ignore. I have a small degree of sympathy! A lot of these habitats and their transitions are poorly described and open to wide interpretation.
So one of the main missions we now face, is to get the Muirburn Code redrafted into a format which removes discretion, fudge and ambiguity. There are too many “mays”, “shoulds” and “where possibles” to make it enforceable. You should be able to watch muirburn being undertaken and be able to say with certainty that; the necessary preparation work has been done, the prescribed staff numbers are there and that they have the correct equipment. You should be able to look at a patch and know that its in the approved location and its selection conforms to the type of habitat that can be burned.
In its current format, the code is largely unenforcable and will make bad law.