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Following yesterday’s blog about the recent massacre of mountain hares on grouse moors within the Cairngorms National Park (see here), and the subsequent outpouring of public anger on social media, the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) has published a statement on its website (here). We’ve reproduced it below:

Our [CNPA’s] statement in response to the mountain hare cull which was reported in the media at the weekend.

Hamish Trench, Director of Conservation and Visitor Experience said  “CNPA has previously set out concerns about the balance of moorland species and habitat management and the need for better data on mountain hare populations is part of this. Observation suggests there is a good population of mountain hares in the Cairngorms and the managed moorlands provide a good habitat for them. We back the current research project which is working with estates in the National Park to establish better counts.

In this case we understand the hare cull was part of a planned annual management cull. We recognise the public concern about the scale of culls and this emphasises the need for good information on populations and restraint in line with SNH’s advice in the meantime. In particular we expect moorland managers to ensure any culls do not threaten the conservation status of mountain hares.”

END

It’s really a non-statement. They had to say something, as a lot of people have been asking questions about how such a wildlife massacre can be allowed to take place inside the National Park. We thought the CNPA would come out strongly and condemn it, especially as we know they’ve previously expressed concern about how some elements of driven grouse moor management (i.e. the illegal persecution of raptors) “threatens to undermine the reputation of the National Park as a high quality wildlife tourism destination” (see here). Indeed, some people on Twitter have been saying they won’t visit the CNP while this level of wildlife killing continues.

However, far from condemning the latest mountain hare massacre, the CNPA’s statement almost suggests that this level of killing is acceptable because it was “part of a planned annual management cull“. Eh? Planned by whom? And is the use of the words ‘planned‘ and ‘management‘ supposed to imply that this wasn’t just a gang of gamekeepers off on another unregulated killing-spree but rather was a carefully-thought out cull, with mountain hare population figures rigorously and accurately assessed to ensure the cull was sustainable? If so, where are those figures, who collected them, and can we all see them, please?

Take out the words ‘planned’ and ‘management’ and you get: “The hare cull was part of an annual cull“.

The CNPA says: “We expect moorland managers to ensure any culls do not threaten the conservation status of mountain hares“. Really? Why would anyone expect moorland managers to voluntarily act in this way? This is an industry well-known for not adhering to some statutory wildlife and environmental legislation, let alone voluntary adherence to requests, as we’ve discussed before (here). How can the CNPA be so naive? Or is it just easier to put out a bland statement that really says nothing of any use than it is to properly investigate the circumstances of these mountain hare massacres?

It’s not very impressive. In fact it’s as unimpressive as SNH’s view, as reported in Rob Edwards’ piece in the Herald (here):

‘SNH agreed that it was difficult to judge whether the cull was excessive or not. It was aiming to improve its population estimates of mountain hares by 2017, and reiterated its call for “restraint on large-scale culls of mountain hares“‘.

In other words, SNH doesn’t have a clue about how sustainable this cull was, has no intention of trying to find out, is asking (not telling) the landowners to show some restraint, but don’t worry folks because there’ll be a better way of assessing mountain hare numbers by 2017. So until then lads, fill your boots.

Of course, these large-scale mountain hare killing-sprees should now have ended (temporarily) as we’ve entered the closed season which is supposed to prevent the lawful killing of mountain hares during certain periods of the year (1st March – 31st July). Whether the closed season will be adhered to is another matter – who is monitoring this? The same organisations monitoring the ‘sustainability’ of mountain hare massacres (i.e. nobody)?

If you’re as unimpressed with the CNPA’s reaction as we are, you might want to send an email to Hamish Trench, Conservation Director of the CNPA, to tell him what you think: hamishtrench@cairngorms.co.uk

You might also want to have your say on the future of National Parks, as suggested by Mark Avery last week (here). If the CNPA and SNH aren’t going to speak out against mountain hare massacres, you can!

Recently we published some photographs of a load of dead mountain hares with some people lined up behind the corpses, grinning at what they’d done (see here).

These photographs caused quite a reaction, both from the general public, who were appalled at such scenes, and from the grouse-shooting industry who generally said the photographs were old and large scale hare culling no longer took place.

They were lying, of course.

We were recently sent some photographs taken by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. The photographs were taken on 25th February 2016 in the Cairngorms National Park. On first glance, it looks like some blokes out with their vehicles in the snow:

But when you zoom in, you see exactly what’s been going on:

That’s a truckload of dead mountain hares.

This photograph was taken from the Lecht road (the A939 Cockbridge to Tomintoul road). According to the grid reference we were given, these vehicles were parked on the Allargue Estate. Now that doesn’t mean that the hares had been massacred on the Allargue Estate or indeed that Allargue Estate staff were in any way involved. We’d be surprised if they were because the Allargue Estate was one of the first fully accredited members of the Wildlife Estates Scotland initiative and a gamekeeper here won the Purdey Gold Award in 2014 for Game & Conservation. According to the Purdey Awards website this estate “works tirelessly to uphold the Wildlife Estates Scotland high standards of wildlife management”.

Grouse-shooting estates have been slaughtering mountain hares for a long time. They do it because they believe mountain hares carry a disease (Louping Ill virus) which can affect their red grouse stocks (i.e. the number of red grouse available to be shot, for fun, during the grouse-shooting season). We, and others, have been writing about this for some time. Here are some previous blogs we’ve written about mountain hare massacres on grouse moors in the Angus Glens (here and here), Aberdeenshire (here) and the Lammermuirs (here).

Last year, SNH called on landowners to practice “voluntary restraint” and try to reign in their lust for slaying mountain hares (here). We said it was a pointless call (here) and clearly we were right judging by the photograph above. Last year, ten conservation organisations asked SNH to impose an immediate three-year ban on hare culling (here) to allow an assessment of how these large-scale and indiscriminate culls were affecting the conservation status of the mountain hare. Landowners reacted strongly against this proposal (read the link!) and SNH refused to impose the temporary ban because the evidence for action was lacking, apparently.

Marvellous. Welcome to Scotland and especially to the Cairngorms National Park.

Rob Edwards has covered this story today (here) as has Mark Avery (here).

UPDATE 11.30hrs: Scottish Land & Estates has issued a statement in response to Rob Edwards’ article in the Herald. You really have to read it. Bear in mind it’s not a spoof. See here.

UPDATE 14th March 2016: A few more blogs covering this atrocity –

The Ferret (by Rob Edwards) here

ParkWatchScotland here

Another one from Mark Avery (#HelpingItHappen) here

Scottish Greens here

UPDATE 14th March 16.00hrs: Cairngorms National Park Authority responds here

The photographs in this article on the iShoot website, written by Peter Carr in April 2015 about a February trip he made to the Angus Glens to participate in a weekend of driven mountain hare shooting, are something else.

We’ve blogged a lot about the indiscriminate killing of mountain hares, particularly on grouse moors in the Lammermuirs (here), Deeside (here) and the Angus Glens (here) and many others have also been campaigning about this obscene bloodbath for a number of years.

SNH has a statutory duty to maintain a healthy population of mountain hares but conservationists have argued that the routine hare culls on grouse moors have led to a severe population decline in some areas.

In December 2014, SNH called for estates to practice ‘voluntary restraint’ on large sale culls – a move we considered to be pointless.

In April 2015, ten conservation organisations called on SNH to implement an immediate three-year ban on mountain hare culling (see here) until the impact of such widespread killing can be properly assessed. The grouse-shooting industry reacted strongly against this: the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association said it was “environmentally irresponsible” to call for a ban (eh??!) and Scottish Land & Estates said it was “ill-informed” and “heavy-handed”. You can see why SNH’s call for ‘voluntary restraint’ won’t work, can’t you!

We’re not sure if SNH has paid any attention to the ten conservation organisations calling for an immediate three-year ban. According to the SNH website, the plea for ‘voluntary restraint’ is still in place and new research is underway (due to complete in 2017) to assess the population status of the mountain hare.

Meanwhile, the slaughter continues….