Further to last week’s news that Scottish gamekeeper Rory Parker pleaded guilty to committing raptor persecution crime on a grouse moor on Moy Estate in September 2021 (see here), I’ve been looking to see how the game-shooting industry has responded to this conviction.
You’ll recall that this is the game-shooting industry whose organisations routinely state they have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards raptor persecution, in which case you’d think they’d be quick to condemn this latest crime and call on their members and the wider shooting public to distance themselves from Moy Estate, and especially as the estate is already serving a three-year General Licence restriction imposed in 2022 after Police Scotland found further evidence of wildlife crime (see here), namely a poisoned red kite and ‘incidents in relation to trapping offences’.
Four days on from Parker’s conviction, I haven’t found any statements of condemnation on the websites of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, BASC, or the Countryside Alliance.
Their collective silence says a lot, I think. In my opinion it’s related to an ongoing, industry-wide damage limitation exercise as the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Bill begins its passage through the Scottish Parliament. Drawing attention to criminal activity on grouse moors at a time when MSPs are considering the extent of proposed regulation in the form of a grouse-shooting licence is not in their interests, although I’d argue that if they were as resolute about stamping out raptor persecution crimes as they claim to be, they should have been at the forefront of leading the condemnation.
The only game-shooting organisation that has responded to the news of Parker’s conviction is landowners’ lobby group, Scottish Land & Estates (SLE).
I’ve already written about a media quote attributed to grouse moor owner Dee Ward, who’s also Vice Chair (Policy) at SLE, who seemed keen to distance Parker’s crime from grouse moor management (see here), and this was repeated in a statement that SLE published on its website on the day of Parker’s conviction.
Credit to SLE for not shying away from the news, but its manipulation of the narrative is all too obvious:
I’m not sure what the ‘progress’ is to which Dee refers. I haven’t seen any evidence of ‘the sector driving down raptor crime in recent years‘. What I have seen is an increasing number of shooting estates having General Licence restrictions imposed after Police Scotland has confirmed evidence of continued raptor persecution crimes (there are currently six GL restrictions in place – Leadhills Estate (here), Lochan Estate (here), Leadhills Estate [again] (here), Invercauld Estate (here), Moy Estate (here) and Millden Estate (here)).
The Scottish Government doesn’t appear to have seen the evidence, either, given the Environment Minister’s statement in 2020 when she announced that there could be no further delay to the introduction of a grouse moor licensing scheme because:
“…despite our many attempts to address this issue, every year birds of prey continue to be killed or disappear in suspicious circumstances on or around grouse moors“.
Time will tell if SLE sticks with Dee’s claim that, “We will continue to do all that we can to prevent, detect and condemn anyone who thinks this kind of abhorrent behaviour is acceptable“.
Will that include boycotting the Highland Game Fair, held each year on the Moy Estate? This is an event that SLE, and the other shooting organisations, routinely attend, with apparently total disregard for sanctions imposed on the estate for wildlife crime (see here).
It’s actions, not mere words, that will determine whether the industry’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy is seen as credible, and as far as I’m concerned, the industry’s actions haven’t come close.
Raptor Persecution UK 
True The game shooting’s silence is deafening. But I think the converse would be equally true. If they condemned Parker outright how many of us would believe them??? Paper never refuses ink.
Personally I think the CEOs of these estates should be jailed for 6 months & fined heavily
Exactly right the buck stops with them .
I absolutely agree. That will certainly have an effect!
Cruel , selfish wicked primitive outdated olde nasty Tory pastime …
Presumably this 22 year old had actually had some training and/or attended a “Wildlife Management” course at one of the colleges.
We never hear comment from these establishments? Given the number of young game keepers getting caught I have to wonder…are they not teaching them to conform to the law? What is their role in stamping out crime? If its not effective maybe this waste of public money should be stopped?
Hi Circus, just put my general thoughts on this point on previous blog post. Basically, attitudes of young keepers are formed by the older keepers they look up to / cliques they grow up with or get in with / hang around with / help out & keepers they go beating for. Colleges and classrooms and sanitised training days wouldn’t be able to convert the mindsets of headstrong (they tend to be) late-teens already under the spell of that world or in thrall to strong personalities / role-models.
Well said
I know one tutor at a rural college that is a member of SRSG that teaches gamekeeper s in conservation/environment but, I cannot comment on the actual gamekeeper tutors but you would expect that they are teaching bang up to date legislation and game management techniques.
I’d always wondered the same thing. Do these “agricultural colleges” make clear to future gamekeepers that willingness to break the law is likely to be an unwritten but unavoidable job requirement of their chosen vocation.
I’m sure you will make sure that the politicians concerned are fully informed of all the facts, Ruth!
I think it would be better for the blog readers to lend a hand and lobby their MSPs…
In what ways will the new proposed licensing scheme benefit the fight against raptor persecution.
No one knows, until the details are published… there is every possibility that it will fail, but… it doesn’t have to. There are ways, to license shooting estates, which depend upon independent ecological audits of the estate to decide whether shooting may continue. Only estates which can provably demonstrate that they have no detrimental effect on the environment would pass (that would encompass the use of medicated grit, the application of snares, drainage, muirburn, the building of tracks, and the persecution of all predators).
Whether that is the way the Scottish Government are thinking is unlikely, I’d say.
I think they are thinking along the lines of simply reducing the ‘bar’ from one of criminal convictions to that of a ‘civil test’ of likely illegal behaviour, for deciding whether an estate passes the ‘test’. That would probably involve expanding the powers of the SSPCA and NatureScot (who would need extra finances?).
In addition, they may tighten muirburn licensing… but not ban it?
That still leaves the seriously damaging practises of drainage, use of snares, track-building and spreading of medicated grit…
And we do not know what sanctions will be proposed, in either case.
Thank you Keith.
Could Stink Pits be added to the list, for reasons of proper agricultural carcass disposal, infection spread and groundwater pollution?
If it was up for consideration, you could/should add anything that was relevant… I was just thinking of a list of environmentally detrimental activities off the top of my head… I forgot to mention the use of lead ammunition, too:-(
There is just SO MUCH that is wrong with the shooting industry!
Other than the presumed revoktion of a licence in the event of a convicted raptor crime on the estate.
Mainly because the grounds for revoking a licence will be based on the civil “balance of probabilities” rather than the criminal “beyond a reasonable doubt” as happens when the crims get to court and get away with it.
Thank you Simon.
The estates them selves have to start getting fined when their employees are found to be braking the law.
That is, unfortunately, easier said than done.
In a hypothetical case, some gamekeeper faces prosecution after being caught bang-to-rights shooting and then killing a raptor on camera. He/she ‘receives’ the very expensive paid-for services of some unethical, fancy, KC to persuade some gullible magistrate/whatever of the ‘uncharacteristic’ behaviour of said gamekeeper, in return for not grassing up his/her employer for instructing/encouraging the said illegal activity.
And a good, unofficial, industry reference is promised to follow…
Where else is the said gamekeeper going to work in the future? What other job could the said gamekeeper do? After all, the said gamekeeper now has a criminal record… so is ‘expected’ to ‘take one for the team’ and move on, but still in the same ‘career’.
For any employer to be found guilty of anything, they have to be shown to have been culpable of something, at least.
Now, having a criminal record ,for wildlife crime debars him from having a shotgun/firearms licence,! a requisite of the job!.
Having a shotgun license is NOT a prerequisite for the job, I’m afraid.
(By-the-way, in the only survey I have come across, more than 50% of legal shotgun license holders had a criminal conviction. There are ways to legally obtain a gun license even with a criminal record. It is also much easier if the criminal has not served jail time…)
If you read the Police and Crime Act 2017, Section 130:
“130Authorised lending and possession of firearms for hunting etc
(1)After section 11 of the Firearms Act 1968 insert—
Authorised lending and possession of firearms for hunting etc
(1)A person (“the borrower”) may, without holding a certificate under this Act, borrow a rifle or shot gun from another person on private premises (“the lender”) and have the rifle or shot gun in his or her possession on those premises if—
(a)the four conditions set out in subsections (2) to (5) are met, and
(b)in the case of a rifle, the borrower is aged 17 or over.
(2)The first condition is that the borrowing and possession of the rifle or shot gun are for either or both of the following purposes—
(a)hunting animals or shooting game or vermin; … ”
So long as the lender has a license, is over 18 and is present, then – for the purposes of gamekeeping – anyone with a criminal record may continue in their trade by simply borrowing a gun.
In trying to confirm if this law applies to Scotland, I found this from
https://www.askthe.scottish.police.uk/faq/?id=93da2b1a-3f80-ec11-8d21-6045bd0e67bf
“A person without a licence may borrow a shotgun from another person on private premises as long as:
the weapon is being borrowed for either hunting animals or shooting game or vermin, or, for shooting at artificial targets;
the lender is at least 18 years old, holds a relevant certificate, and either has the right to allow others to enter the premises for the purpose of shooting animals, game or vermin, or, is authorised in writing by such a person to lend weapons on the premises;
the borrower’s possession of the weapon complies with any conditions set out in the lender’s certificate; and
during the time the weapon is borrowed, the borrower is in the presence of the lender or another person aged 18 or over who holds a relevant certificate.”
I didn’t realise any of that either, thanks for the info Keith.
What appals me, is that in the court case, most of the time, the parties argued and defended the boundaries of grouse moor, or other. Fact is, raptors are protected in this country, killers should be jailed, land owners fined hundreds of thousands and lose their licence forever. Also, MP’s defending farmers, like the Dorset one xxxxx xxxxx a WTE and xxxxxxxxxxx need to be brought to book. And while I’m all for country life and traditions, actually raising animals and birds, for man to shoot for pleasure, is abhorrent.
What I can’t understand is the constant leniency given to this type of crime I can only think alot of judges go grouse shooting!