RSPB Scotland welcomes SNH announcement of restrictions on Perthshire sporting estate
Video evidence supporting restrictions revealed
RSPB Scotland has welcomed the announcement by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) today of two restrictions imposed on the use of General Licenses on a sporting estate in Perthshire and on an un-named individual. These follow previous similar restrictions imposed on grouse moors in Stirlingshire and the Scottish Borders.
Duncan Orr-Ewing, Head of Species and Land Management for RSPB Scotland said, ‘We are pleased to read the SNH announcement restricting the use of the General Licence in these cases. In May 2017, the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment announced a package of new measures designed to protect birds of prey, including the consideration of all legal measures that could be used to target geographical areas of concern, and this is part of that approach.
We look forward to hearing soon what other measures are to be implemented to act as meaningful deterrents to the continuing crimes against our vulnerable birds of prey. We believe that these current measures also need to be allied to an effective licensing scheme for driven grouse shooting in particular, where any illegal and bad practice substantiated by the public authorities, would also result in the ultimate sanction of licence removal.
We envisage that any licensing system could work along similar lines to those that SNH have used here for Open General Licence removal, that is based upon stringent checks and balances of police evidence and SNH advice, to provide safeguards for those sporting businesses which work within the law and follow best practice.‘.
Ian Thomson, RSPB Scotland’s Head of Investigations, added, ‘We are disappointed that no prosecutions have arisen from either of these cases. It has been reported by the authorities that these latest restrictions are as a result of evidence of serious wildlife crime offences being found, with clear links to local gamebird shoot management established by the subsequent investigations. This part of Perthshire has had an appalling history of raptor persecution and this case followed the discovery by police of two poisoned buzzards. The other restriction was imposed after RSPB investigations staff passed video footage to police of a gamekeeper allegedly setting illegal traps, baited with a dead woodpigeon, very close to a goshawk nest in NE Scotland.‘.
Ends
See Raptor Persecution UK for much more detail on this.
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Why no mention of the estate involved – the Eradynate Estate? It may assist the cause of harrier protection by naming and shaming, but we shouldn’t get too excited as if this a significant breakthrough. Three years of not being able to legally kill crows, magpies, etc will make very little difference to the availability of grouse for shooting, so is very unlikely to have any significant economic impact on the estate in question. In any case, all the gamekeepers need do is shoot crows outside the fringes of the restricted zone and that will have an effect on numbers foraging on the grouse moor itself. They may be restricted within the zone from using crow traps, but these again can be set outside the boundary, and I don’t believe that gamekeepers will allow any breeding pairs within the grouse moor; they will simply shoot out the nests when no-one is looking. Their main ‘enemy’ (excluding protected birds of prey) apart from the crow is the fox, and the restriction of the general licence does not restrict them from killing foxes. In fact without crow traps to check twice a day (a laugh!), they will have more time to focus on fox control. Nearly all of the birds on the General Licence list have very little real impact on grouse productivity; their persecution is allowed on the basis of folklore and presumption rather than empirical science. So as far as punishment is concerned, the General Licence restriction is a damp squib!
It’s better than nothing and provides more evidence of wrongdoing to be used in debates against DGS. Every case like this is another crack in the industry’s defence of no case to answer.
Also worth noting is the fact that a license restriction is a civil matter and requires a lesser burden of proof than a criminal conviction. It is possible that once again (looking at you the RSPB) there wasn’t sufficient admissible evidence to secure a conviction even if the case would have clearly passed the public interest test. The relevant authorities have applied what sanction they can in the circumstances. I agree though they could have gone on to publicly name the estate.
Iain – some good points there but I don’t think that Edradynate is a grouse moor – lots of Pheasants and partridges though. Unless you know better?
As I said earlier why should wildlife companies have to have a license in Argyll and Bute and not shooting estates? They all use vehicles to move guests around and not only are the vehicles tested for MOT the council ex-amen the vehicles as well to see if they are good enough for the job. This could be expanded throughout Scotland as companies from outside the region come to Mull and Islay without a license!
Don’t overlook the launch of the revised Muirburn code today… The changes are fairly scant but it includes an unequivocal ban on burning blanket bog. I would guess that it SHOULD stop muirburn on about 50% of the current area.
http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A2410869.pdf
A few of the glorified labourers are going to get a tad hot under the collar…..
Peat
Burning should not take place on peatland, except as part of a habitat restoration plan, approved by SNH (also see Section 7.1, and Supplementary Information 7.1).
Areas with peat hags, bare peat or erosion should not be burnt.
Thin soils (<5cm deep) over underlying rock.
These areas should not be burnt. If vegetation is removed, soil may be eroded by wind and water down to bare rock.
The great thing is that we wont need trap cameras to collect proof…
Perhaps in a rebranding exercise they will call it the Eradicate Estate.