I wrote an opinion piece for The National which was published yesterday (here) about the grouse shooting industry’s supposedly sincere claim of having ‘zero tolerance’ for the illegal killing of birds of prey.
It’s reproduced below:
It is widely acknowledged that the illegal killing of birds of prey has long been synonymous with driven grouse shooting in Scotland, even though raptors have had supposed legal protection for almost 70 years. Birds of prey such as buzzards, red kites, hen harriers and golden eagles are perceived to be a threat to red grouse and thus are ruthlessly shot, poisoned or trapped to protect the estates’ lucrative sporting interests.
Prosecutions are rare given the remoteness of the vast, privately-owned shooting estates where these crimes are committed; there are few witnesses and gamekeepers go to great lengths to hide the evidence, as demonstrated when a ‘missing’ golden eagle’s satellite tag was found wrapped in lead sheeting and dumped in a river, presumably in an attempt to block the transmitter.
The Scottish Government has tried various sanctions to address these crimes over the years, including the introduction in 2014 of General Licence restrictions, which are based on a civil burden of proof if there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution. These restrictions don’t stop the sanctioned estates from shooting grouse but do partially limit their moorland management activities and were specifically designed to act as a ‘reputational driver’. Unfortunately they have been proven to be wholly ineffective.
In 2017 a scientific report into the fate of satellite-tracked golden eagles in Scotland highlighted the extent of the ongoing killing on some grouse moors (almost one third of 141 tracked eagles disappeared in suspicious circumstances, none of which resulted in a prosecution). In response, the Government commissioned a review (the Werritty Review) of the sustainability of grouse moor management, which led to the Government finally committing to introducing a full licensing scheme for grouse shooting in 2020. The threat of having an estate licence completely revoked if raptor persecution is detected may now act as a suitable deterrent, as long as the law is adequately enforced.
This long-awaited legislation is currently on passage through Parliament as the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill. Unsurprisingly, the grouse shooting lobby is working hard to influence proceedings and minimise the Bill’s impact, questioning its legality and proportionality, even making threats to take the Government to the European Court of Human Rights. Instead of welcoming legislation that should protect the innocent and rid the industry of those who continue to bring it into disrepute, industry representatives maintain that a voluntary approach is sufficient and deny that persecution is even an issue, despite the suspicious disappearance of at least 35 more satellite-tagged hen harriers and golden eagles since the 2017 report was published.
Grouse-shooting representatives maintain they have a ‘zero tolerance’ stance against illegal raptor persecution and argue that they can’t do anything more. But talk is cheap and this industry should be judged by its actions, not by superficial pronouncements from its leaders.
I would argue that there is much more the industry could, and should, be doing if it wants to be seen as a credible force for change.
For example, let’s look at the Moy Estate in Inverness-shire. Two estate gamekeepers have been convicted for raptor persecution offences here (one in 2011 and one in March this year) and the estate has been at the centre of multiple police investigations many times in between. Indeed, it is currently serving a three-year General Licence restriction imposed by NatureScot in 2022 on the basis of police evidence of wildlife crime against birds of prey, including the discovery of a poisoned red kite and various trapping offences.
Moy Estate is believed to be a member of the Scottish landowners’ lobby group, Scottish Land & Estates (SLE). Has SLE expelled the estate from its membership? If it hasn’t, why not? If it has, why hasn’t it done so publically?
Why are SLE, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association and others from the shooting industry, still attending the Moy Country Fair held annually on the Moy Estate? Why hasn’t this estate been boycotted and blacklisted by industry representatives? Surely that would send a strong message of ‘zero tolerance’ for raptor persecution?
It’s not just Moy Estate, either. There are a number of other grouse-shooting estates, some very high profile and often described as ‘prestigious’ in the shooting press, that are also either currently, or have previously, served three-year General Licence restrictions.
How many of those estates and/or their sporting agents have been blacklisted by industry organisations? None of them, as far as I can see.
Zero tolerance should mean exactly that. Anything less simply isn’t credible.
Dr Ruth Tingay writes the Raptor Persecution UK blog and is a founder member of REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
Raptor persecution isn’t just synonymous with driven grouse shooting, it also takes place on pheasant and partridge shoots!!
Er, yes, Simon, but the piece was timed to be published at the start of the grouse-shooting season, not the pheasant/partridge-shooting season!
More like zero tolerance of Hen Harriers
Mankind is a destructive force and where wildlife conflicts with mindless pastimes it has no chance.They fail to see the rich Web of life around them and abuse their power to destroy , the grouse have a right to live as everything else does .I say ban all shooting estates everywhere give nature a chance.
Here here I quite agree, especially when the bird population have had bird flu yet again and numbers are nit even near as normal. Its about time this industry stopped and took a look at the damage they are doing to the future of wildlife.
Sad political motivations…
Well done Ruth for writing such an informed article and getting it published.
I have never understood the shooting industry’s claims of zero tolerance for raptor persecution and then the apparent complete inaction within the industry or shooting fraternity to take action against the criminals who operate within their midst.
It is so very apparent that when a raptor crime is reported the investigation by the police is often thwarted by the silence from those working on the estate where the incident has happened.
I would suggest that there should be a much greater proactive approach by estates to identify which of their employees is responsible when a crime is committed, and to provide the police with evidence which will help secure a conviction at court. This simply isn’t happening, and one has to question why?
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx.
I haven’t seen any attempt within the shooting industry to blacklist estates where wildlife crimes and raptor persecution are suspected of occurring, and to warn shooters away from those estates, so that shooters don’t inadvertently fund the criminal activity which takes place behind the scenes.
It is very difficult to comprehend the shooting industry’s inaction to tackle raptor persecution. I can think of no other industry which doesn’t want to operate on a level playing field. Why aren’t those estates which follow the law but have less game birds as a consequence actively campaigning for regulations to remove the rogue players from the game?
Surely in a competitive commercial market those estates which engage or permit raptor persecution in order to increase game bird numbers and thus are able to offer more shoot days or greater bag sizes are gaining an unfair advantage by the criminal activity which takes place?
My conclusion is that there can only be collusion within the industry so that the villains are tolerated, because their actions suppress raptor numbers, and since raptors have no boundaries over which estates they fly, then this benefits all estates, both good and bad, as even though bad estates will fair better with greater reduced bird of prey populations, national raptor populations are kept suppressed which helps ensure game bird numbers across all estates are kept artificially elevated.
It will be interesting to see how those in the shooting industry respond to your article. Will they provide a credible explanation as to why there is so little activity within the industry to expel the criminals, or will there be usual silence because they have no credible response to your accusations?
Leave the Raptors alone and stop killing them. Stop shooting grouse, they are beautiful birds, which live, breath, have young and feel pain and joy, killing animals should not be for sport and money. Just stop both killing grouse and Raptors and find another sport which doesn’t involve murdering wildlife
Well said!
[Ed: comment deleted as libellous]
As an ex shooting man I’ve shot many game birds for the pot, normally rough shooting.
Never shot grouse as I can’t afford it, never have I shot a raptor and i never would, (unlike xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx ) those who kill them should be prosecuted and if they are gamekeeper their shoots should be stopped for a period of time. Raptors will eat game bird but I don’t believe this has much affect on their numbers.
Needs to be more of a deterrent, or these large estates should be forced to employ an RSPB ranger full time to work alongside the gamekeeper.
Well done on getting this published and reaching a wider audience. Slowly but surely the thumbscrews are being tightened. Wonder what the industry’s response will be. Lots of spluttering, I imagine
Over the years they have not moved one iota in order that some kind of middle ground could be found. I doubt that it would be particularly hard, for example, to remove or adap t the law so hidden camera’s can be trained on vulnerable nests. But no, nothing.
To me this indicates to me that they, the Shooting Lobby” will manipulate every puppet they have dancing on a very long string, to oppose any measures that might hinder their current management practises or expose their employees more readily to prosecution. Even in the world of the blind this must be patantly obvious by now.
What to do? Video every illegal practise and incident that can be found and place them on social media, with a special channel if need be. The objection might be that this would stop any prosecution relative to what was filmed and publicised.
My answer would be to ask what prosecution?
Far more damage would be done to wildlife criminals and those who sponsor them this way than could every be done through Official Channels, for reasons we all know. However, to be effective it would need to be well structured and publicised, which would, of course, atttract their attention but hopefully the continuing glare of publicity it would attract would also act as a safeguard of sorts to anyone willing to take on a project like this.
Whilst Ruth’s excellent article pertains to Scotland the same is completely true of English grouse organisations too. Unfortunately we don’t have the suspension of general licences to at least point out the culprits, we do however have 67 disappeared Hen Harriers in England the vast majority on or adjacent to grouse moors. We should also remember that successful Peregrine breeding is as rare as hen’s teeth on Pennine grouse moors despite there being dozens of ” traditional ” sites. One wonders how many Peregrines are killed to keep those sites vacant. Zero tolerance my arse .
The use of the term ‘zero tolerance’ by the shooting community to describe its attitude to raptor persecution on grouse moors is like ‘newspeak’ in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. The truth is that the grouse shooting world is totally tolerant of raptor persecution. The industry claims that any incidents are the work of a minority of bad apples who are not representative of the shooting world as a whole but collectively they close ranks and resort to denial and obfuscation whenever allegations of persecution occur. If the so-called good apples showed a more active and energetic determination to rid the criminals from their ranks then claims of zero tolerance might be more credible. In the absence of that, the reality is that there is at best a hypocritical acceptance of the benefits of raptor persecution by shoot operators who prefer to keep their own hands clean while others do the dirty work and at worst, widescale collusion in the persecution.
And let’s not forget that up until recently, shooters, keepers, landowners and their representative bodies were not only openly advocating persecution, but campaigning for it’s legalisation; more often than not under the pretence of concern for prey populations.
Of course, once the penny dropped (taking around 25 years to do so) that, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence, the old “songbirds” fabrication just wouldn’t fly, they now undulge in the current, shabby masquerade, while repeatedly playing down the all too obvious level of criminality within their ranks.
Zero tolerance? Zero credibility, more like.
Apologies for the inadvertent paraphrasing of the thread title. It slipped my mind as I was composing the above. Duh!
How and why has this obvious persecution of PROTECTED BIRD SPECIES been allowed to continue-blatantly? Why have the guilty game keepers employers not been prosecuted? They are ultimately responsible for the proven poisoning and killing of a protected species? Are these people above the law due to their wealth, land ownership and/or their political affilliations? There are many similarities to other banned hunting groups. I think prosecutions are well overdue and their actions are serious enough to warrent imprisonment. They are responsible for the near extinction of a species. What will future generations think of the inaction taken to prevent it happening? Especially when it is accepted as a SPORT??
Totally unacceptable.
Because money talks.
Excellent article. Well done!
The massive numbers of pheasant, grouse etc. on shooting estates demonstrates how active management of bird populations can produce very high numbers, quite quickly.
It has been suggested that licensing of shooting enterprises may help prevent raptor endangerment from misguided people – and such licensing is beginning to happen, I think?
If one condition required for the Grant of a Shooting Estate Licence was, for example, hard evidence of a large, thriving, breeding raptor population – as should be expected where prey are plentiful and raptors both protected and supported – then a lack of sufficient raptors to meet the set criteria would preclude shooting for (say) a minimum of three years.
Hopefully this would clarify the need for the law to be enthusiastically endorsed and supported by everyone, everywhere, unconditionally and effectively.
Even by the criminals!
Keep up the good work.
Ed.
“If one condition required for the Grant of a Shooting Estate Licence was, for example, hard evidence of a large, thriving, breeding raptor population – as should be expected where prey are plentiful and raptors both protected and supported – then a lack of sufficient raptors to meet the set criteria would preclude shooting for (say) a minimum of three years.”
I agree, Ed, and conditions to that effect (involving baseline environmental surveys, and incremental annual surveys thereafter) were part of my submissions to the Scottish Government’s consultations (and involved not just raptors but all other predators and flora and fauna).
However, the ‘big hitters’ in this campaign have not publicly put forward specific conditions for licensing, so I very much doubt that anything like that will be implemented. Which is why I expect licensing will have only a limited effect…. and that the ensuing campaign will be for some form of a ban.
The shooting industry can hide the mutilated corpse of a raptor very easily, but nobody can hide a denuded landscape, a colour-contaminated water supply or a flooded settlement.
The immediate question remains: will Scottish parliamentarians actually recognise that?