The Press & Journal published an excellent opinion piece by Bob Elliot yesterday, timed to coincide with the Inglorious 12th.
Bob is the former Head of Investigations at RSPB and currently is the Director of OneKind, a small yet effective animal welfare charity in Scotland that punches well above its weight. OneKind is also a member of REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform, so Bob’s credentials to write this piece are second to none.
Most readers of this blog are, I would guess, very familiar with the consequences of illegally-set traps on grouse moors and their use to capture birds of prey which are then subsequently killed, but there’s less attention given to the legal use of these traps to target so-called legitimate ‘pest’ species.
This typically thoughtful piece from Bob covers the main welfare concerns. It’s reproduced below:
At this time of the year, my thoughts always turn to the start of the grouse shooting season, or the “Glorious Twelfth”, as it is known in the shooting community.
There really isn’t anything glorious about it at all, people shooting live birds for fun.
For the shooting groups to have enough grouse to kill, the grouse moors need to be heavily managed, and the killing of predators continues unrelentingly.
In the past, I spent many a day walking the hills of Scotland, investigating wildlife crime, and would regularly come across cage traps used by gamekeepers: structures of wood and wire, incongruous looking objects in the landscape. But, did you know that crows and magpies, intelligent and sensitive birds, are routinely trapped and killed in these cages?
There are several types of traps, and they fall into two main categories: large crow cage traps, big enough for a person to enter, which are designed to catch multiple birds, and the smaller, more portable Larsen traps, which are designed to catch one bird.
Whilst many wildlife crime incidents have been recorded for the “misuse” of crow cage traps, their use is cruel, even when used legally. The impact being caught in these traps has on crows and other corvids, such as magpies, should not be underestimated.
Sudden confinement is inevitably going to be frightening and stressful for any wild animal. On top of this, crows and magpies are territorial birds, so being forced to share space with others leads to additional stress and aggression. Birds will fly about, frantically trying to escape, and can injure themselves in the process.
It is legally permitted to leave birds in these traps for up to 24 hours. After a long confinement, possibly exposed to the elements and to predation, they are killed by the person who set the trap.
This is usually done with a blow to the head, but it is not always a humane death and may take repeated hits. I remember an incident where a gamekeeper was filmed trying for several minutes to catch and kill crows in a trap, while the others flew around, panicked.
Even worse, though, must be the use of “decoy” birds, used to lure other birds into the trap in a seemingly endless cycle of killing. I have seen birds enduring some of the worst Scottish weather.
On one occasion, I remember temperatures were very low, and the biting wind was blowing the rain sideways on the exposed hillside. The decoy bird in the trap remained hunched on the perch, with no shelter apart from a rudimentary box placed on the floor in the corner of the trap.
These decoy birds could be used repeatedly for weeks or months, after initially being caught themselves. They might be mutilated to cut their wing and tail feathers, so they are unable to fly.
Although there is a legal requirement to provide them with food, water, shelter and a perch, these provisions are often pitifully inadequate. Either way, they are ultimately doomed to death, and are confined so that others can meet the same fate.
All this killing so that an unnaturally high population of red grouse can be maintained for sport shooting. In my mind, it is unjustifiable.
The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill currently in parliament will bring greater regulations on the use of these traps, and we welcome that.
We would, of course, prefer to see an end to crow cage traps altogether, and will continue to campaign for the banning of their use. However, it is crucial that steps are taken now to regulate the trapping of crows and other wild animals in a way that prevents the worst suffering of wild animals on Scotland’s grouse moors.
ENDS
For anyone interested in reading more on this subject, I’d recommend Alick Simmons’ new book: Treated Like Animals – Improving the lives of the creatures we own, eat and use. (2023 Pelagic Publishing). Alick worked as the UK Government’s Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer for many years. In his book he devotes an entire chapter to ‘Snares, Guns and Poison: the ‘Management’ of wildlife. Well worth a read (see here).
Raptor Persecution UK 
All animal trapping is inhumane and the whole country already knows this but the whole countrys main concern is money so they don’t care enough to give their opinions to government so nothing will change.
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This just isn’t true. Many millions of people care very much and donate their time and money to wildlife causes as well as speak up. We must remain positive and keep fighting because we’re making progress.
Your comment is way too negative
I wonder if you saw the coverage yesterday (Saturday 12th) on BBC Reporting Scotland? While it did cover Extinction Rebellion’s protest outside Dundee airport, the footage from a grouse moor of four very photogenic young women toting shotguns must have required quite some coordination between a PR company and the North Britainshire branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation. (The BBC is far from unbiased, in many observers’ opinions, in Scotland).
It was also interesting that not one of the voices in the interviews on the moors (the representative of the Scottish moor owners’ group nor the tweed-modelling gals) held a Scottish accent.
Regards the accent, it’s no different on the good grouse moors* in England. The Guns in the butts don’t usually share the local or even regional accent of the beaters, and quite often not even the same (first) language. And even when they are landowners from nearby, they and their guests often have that distinctive “accent-less accent” via their education.
*excepting little syndicates and small -scale grouse shoots, which are few these days anyway.
Yes I saw the bbc piece. It showed both the protesters & the participants.
No surprise that the shooters & landowners have “public” school accents, and not regional ones.
Like most of us in Scotland who find shooting wildlife for fun sickening, we are still waiting for the Scottish Government to make meaningful legislation to prevent the slaughter (both legal & illegal) on the moors. Presently there’s hardly a whisker between Holyrood & Westminster in terms of effective policies despite the years in government.
I think you’re forgetting legislation the allows freedom of access (which has helped alert cases of raptor persecution); vicarious liability legislation (not applied as often as it should be – but the prosecution service and courts have to answer for that); increased penalties; the ScotGov funded report into Golden Eagle ‘disappearances’; the Werrity study and report; the current legislation going through Holy Rood… While I think it’s all too slow I recognise the need to show all due care in approaching legislation given the very likely intention of the bird-killing-for-fun groups to seek to fight through the courts (look at the time and waste of public money caused by the Whisky Producers taking the Minimum Pricing of Alcohol legislation through every level of court – and back again!).
So, I think you’re wrong to say that there is no difference in practical policies between the Union parliament in London and the Scottish parliament at Holy Rood.
I suppose the Unionist position would probably be that there should be NO difference between what passes in Westminster (or English moors) or Scotland!
Like all of us, I look forward to legislation produced by the SG, however until that happens there is no more a deterrent in Scotland than in England to the whole scale environmental destruction caused by driven grouse shooting. The SG have had plenty of time to do that, you would have thought they would like to set an example to demonstrate how much better they could be than Westminster.
Well, I think you are being a little, er… deluded. You said there was no difference in effective policies between the Scottish Government and the Westminster one – I’ve cited several.
Tell me one piece of legislation that Westminster has passed to curb the killing-birds-for-fun lot in England since, say, the Scottish Parliament was re-convened in 1999?
And there doesn’t look to be anything radically changing under the current Labour leadership. I don’t see them dealing with raptor persecution or moor-burning if they get back into power in England!
Small correction: Alick Simmons excellent book is actually called ‘Treated Like Animals’
[Ed: oops, thanks, amended!]
I saw a crow trap on one of our walks in the pentland hills. It upset me very much not least because of the desperation of the decoy bird. I wanted to release it but was discouraged by my forester friend who said sadly it was legal. I watch the intelligence of the corvids in our garden and still wish I had ignored him
Sadly, releasing or interfering with the traps gives the keepers ammunition to claim that their (legal) equipment is being vandalised or damaged.
It’s not just on grouse moors this trapping and poisoning is widespread on pheasant and partridge shoots all over the country