Loophole closed in grouse shooting licences via Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026

Some good news!

The giant loophole in Scotland’s grouse shooting licences has been closed, via an amendment in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026.

If you recall, grouse moor licensing was introduced as part of the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024, as a result of the continued illegal killing of birds of prey on grouse moors and the associated difficulties of identifying an individual suspect and prosecuting them.

The idea was that a licence to shoot Red Grouse could be amended / withdrawn / revoked by NatureScot if evidence showed that illegal raptor persecution had taken place (importantly, based on the civil burden of proof, i.e. balance of probability, rather than the criminal burden of proof, i.e. beyond reasonable doubt). It was expected that the licence would cover an estate’s entire landholding, not just the areas where Red Grouse are shot, because raptor persecution crimes often take place beyond the boundary of the moor (e.g. in woodland).

However, in November 2024, just three months after they began, the licences were significantly weakened after legal threats from the grouse shooting industry were used to successfully sabotage the licensing regime. Instead of now covering an entire estate, it was announced that the licence holder could decide on the extent of the area the licence covered, specifically the area where Red Grouse are ‘taken or killed’.

Effectively, this could mean simply drawing an arbitrary line around their grouse butts, denoting the reach of a shotgun pellet, and argue that THAT is the area where they take/kill grouse and thus that should be the extent of the licensable area:

In addition to this, the changes made to the licence by NatureScot meant that a whole suite of other ‘relevant offences’ listed in the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Act that were supposed to trigger a licence revocation (i.e. offences on the Protection of Badgers Act 1992, Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996, Conservation (Natural Habitats etc) Regulations 1994, Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Act 2023) were NOT covered, which was clearly going against the intent of Parliament when the Wildlife & Muirburn Act was voted for.

Thanks to a year of campaigning, notably by Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell and the RSPB, the Scottish Government introduced a proposed amendment during the passage of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill to close off the grouse shoot licence loophole. Despite push-back from the usual suspects, the amendment passed Stage 3 of the Bill on 29 January 2026 and the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act received Royal Assent on 12 March 2026.

The amendment empowers NatureScot (the licensing authority) to “propose a different area to which the licence is to relate from that described in the [licensee’s] application“, and if unable to reach agreement with the applicant on the area, to refuse the application. My understanding is that this can’t be applied retrospectively (i.e. to licences already granted prior to this Act) without the landowner’s permission but will apply to all new licence applications from this point onwards. Its effectiveness, of course, will rely upon NatureScot’s appetite for standing up to the powerful landowner/shooting lobby – let’s see how that works out, because recent experience doesn’t inspire much confidence.

In addition, and more importantly from my perspective, the existing legislation specified that NatureScot may modify, suspend or revoke a grouse-shooting licence if it was satisfied that the licence holder, or a person involved in managing the land to which the licence relates, had committed a “relevant offence” (a wildlife or animal welfare offence as specified in the Act) “on the land”. The amendment replaces the wording “on the land” so that section now reads “has committed a relevant offence that supports or benefits the activities permitted by the licence” i.e. a relevant offence need not have taken place on the specified licensed area for NatureScot to suspend / revoke the licence.

This is significant as not only does it reinstate all the other ‘relevant offences’ that were lost after NatureScot’s botched changes to the licence after a legal threat from the grouse shooting industry in November 2024, but importantly, it means that if NatureScot considers an offence has been committed beyond the licensable area, sanctions can still be imposed if the offence relates to grouse moor management (e.g. predator control).

My understanding is that, again, this can’t be applied retrospectively (i.e. for offences committed prior to the enactment of the new legislation, unless the offence was committed in the licensable area) but does apply from when the new legislation was enacted.

I don’t think it’ll be too long before we see its effectiveness tested.

Here is the relevant section in the Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026: