Press release from the Scottish Greens:
THERE’S NOTHING GLORIOUS ABOUT GROUSE SHOOTING SEASON
The so-called Glorious 12th is a festival of violence
There’s nothing glorious or humane about the driven grouse shooting season, which begins today with the so-called ‘Glorious 12th’, the Scottish Greens have said.
The Party’s rural affairs spokesperson, Ariane Burgess MSP, has branded it “a festival of violence” and a “cruel and outdated hobby.”
At present the Scottish Government is progressing the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill, which will introduce a licensing system for grouse shooting and the practice of muirburn.
These measures are a necessary response to incidents of illegal persecution of Scotland’s iconic birds of prey, such as golden eagle, which have occurred on or near to grouse moors over several years [Ed: several decades!].
The measures on licensing muirburn will also protect peatlands which have a vital role in locking up carbon emissions. It’s also important that in a climate crisis where wildfires are more prevalent that we know who is undertaking muirburn when and where.
The Scottish Greens have long opposed blood sports. The Party has welcomed the introduction of the bill, which was a key commitment in the Bute House Agreement, and believe it is a vital step for protecting Scotland’s iconic nature and our environment.
Ms Burgess said:
“There is nothing glorious or humane about the 12th of August. It is a festival of violence. Far too much of our land is given to this cruel and outdated hobby.
“The intensive burning and degradation of our landscapes to try and improve the habitat for red grouse so that there are more of them to be shot is unnecessary, and damages the local environment and our climate.
“The Scottish Government’s Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill will be an important step to protecting our wildlife and curbing the environmental degradation and ritualistic cruelty that lies at the heart of this so-called sport.
“Our world renowned landscapes and nature are for all of us. They must serve local communities, rather than the interests of the small number of wealthy people who pursue these niche and elitist blood sports“.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
She’s absolutely right, I think that grouse shooting is vile, as are those who take part in, profit from and support it.
It’s not just the opening of the season that’s a festival of violence…throughout the whole year is a festival of violence with the trapping and shooting and poisoning that goes on behind the scenes!! But remember these people are the ‘guardians of the countryside’!! Oh but don’t forget they do pretend to like Curlews and Lapwings!!! Wonder how many of them get shot on shoot day too!!!
I’ve heard tales of Loaders having to stop Guns from getting overexcited and shooting a few non-target species, “No Sir, that’s ones not a grouse Sir…” and have personally seen farmyard hens get shot after getting mixed up in pheasant drives. Also I have seen (and inspected it with curiosity, as it was the only one I’ve ever seen alive or dead) a juvenile Capercaillie shot on a pheasant drive (the Guns penalty would likely be to pay for the port after the shoot). And many Guns can’t tell the difference between red-leg partridges and an errant red grouse when in an excited state on their Peg on a red-leg/pheasant day. Also if memory serves some Scottish moors we’re still shooting Golden Plover on grouse drives in the 2000’s. Most pathetic thing though, and I even thought this back then when I was quite a callous bonehead, is shooting Snipe in grouse drives. And I think it is still the done thing. A Snipe shot too close is just like a pathetic and very sad sight, full of lead and bruised meat (about as much as a sparrow at best of times) and useless for the table – often just used in the stoat traps.
Whilst discussing this very subject, a customer of mine told me that their daughter who served food to the guns, often came home saying how the drunken shooters used to brag about the birds of prey that were shot on the pheasant shoots!!
Could be true, if for example the Guns are part of a long-time syndicate, and all of the beaters / loaders / pickers are all part of the “in” clique that know and trust each other, it wouldn’t surprise me very much at all if someone knocked a buzzard down. And after the shoot, it is generally said that the posher and more blue-blooded the team of Guns, the worse their conduct towards people serving them food & drink generally is i.e. waitresses / housekeepers. The teams of middle of road paying Guns tend to treat people decently. And I’m not a class warrior…it is just an observation on I have heard repeated by the said housekeepers / seasonal helpers, etc.
Well said
as long as this new bill isn’t full of loopholes like the Protection of Wild Mammals 2002 Act was…
Several decades indeed! Why, when a politician is speaking of crime, do they still play it down? What are they scared of? (Or who?)
Why aren’t the monarchy leading the way in abandoning this so called sport? If they condemned it the hooray Henries wouldn’t be able to ape nobility. Which is mostly what it’s about.
“Why aren’t the monarchy leading the way in abandoning this so called sport?”
Because they are still enthusiastically supporting it.
It employs many people in rural areas and has acted in preserving golden plover, Green Plover, Curlew etc.
This is never taken into consideration , dodgy traps? Rubbish ladder traps and larsen traps control corvids.
Hen harriers are ground nesting birds like the above and their biggest problems are foxes , corvids and in open country dog walker’s.
The RSPB, Wildfowl and wetlands trust control foxes and corvids now.
They realised that they were not getting the breeding results farmers like me were getting with Green plover and Curlew..
When will some of you who are so anti anything to do with farming and hunting so through ignorance and some through malice, Do a bit of fact finding and look at the whole picture?
I still reel with laughter at the manikkins story that was put on here recently!
Complaining about scarecrows unbelievable
Are you at all capable of posting an honest comment here? Or are you so utterly deluded as to think that by repeating the same old lies, over and again, you’ll con people into supporting your degenerate practices?
“and has acted in preserving golden plover, Green Plover, Curlew etc.”
Not true. Lapwing numbers have dramatically collapsed in the last sixty years, as have Curlew in the last thirty. See https://data.bto.org/trends_explorer/?species=Curlew
“Hen harriers are ground nesting birds like the above and their biggest problems are foxes , corvids and in open country dog walker’s.”
Not true: the BTO report:
“Based on multiple field studies providing good evidence, the main driver of declines in Hen Harrier populations appears to have been illegal persecution, causing a reduction in nesting success, annual productivity and survival of breeding females….
… There is good evidence showing that, although the Hen Harrier has been protected under UK law since 1961, many are still unlawfully killed or disturbed in efforts to protect the economic viability of driven shooting of Red Grouse (Redpath & Thirgood 1997, Thompson et al. 2009, 2016, Rebecca et al. 2016, Challis et al. 2018, Murgatroyd et al. 2019)
A study combining Atlas data and a two-year field study provided good evidence that nesting success, annual productivity and survival of female Hen Harriers was lower on grouse moors than on other moorland or in young conifer forests, due to destruction by humans (Bibby & Etheridge 1993, Etheridge et al. 1997)…
…Fielding et al. (2011) conclude that illegal killing is the biggest single factor affecting the species and that it is having a dramatic impact on the population in core areas of its range in northern England and Scotland
An expert knowledge assessment of threats across Europe also identified direct persecution as the main threat to breeding Hen Harriers in the UK (Fernandez-Bellon et al. 2020).”
https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/hen-harrier
When will you move into the modern world. Here is a very simple question for a very simple man
How did birds survive on the moors before the advent of grouse shooting? Just maybe if you stopped trying to kid us that you needed to kill nearly everything that moved to protect one species to then be shot we would take a bit more notice of you.
Instead you are living like a neanderthal man. IE kill or be killed. So sad mate