Scottish National Party (SNP) delegates officially adopted a policy supporting licensing of driven grouse shooting estates at today’s National Council in Perth, making it certified party policy to support licensing for driven grouse estates.
The move adds considerable momentum to the campaign for shooting estate licensing.
Ian Thomson said, ‘RSPB Scotland commends the National Council of the SNP for approving this resolution, committing the party to the licensing of driven grouse shooting. It has become increasingly clear that self-regulation by the gamebird shooting industry has failed, with frequent incidents of illegal killing of protected birds of prey, unsustainable culls of mountain hares and repeated damage to vulnerable peatland habitats. While we have welcomed steps taken by successive Scottish Governments to bear down on wildlife crime, it is evident that the increasingly intensive management of some areas, solely aimed at producing ever-larger grouse bags, flies in the face of public opinion and that better regulation of this industry, to ensure legal, sustainable management of our uplands, is long overdue.‘.
Jennifer Dunn, a member of the SNP’s National Council, who proposed the motion said: ‘I’m delighted that fellow delegates voted in favour of shooting estate licensing. Raptor persecution is a huge issue that many, many people care deeply about. Although the conference floor cannot dictate policy to the Government, I’m hopeful that Ministers will listen to party activists and introduce tough new policies to combat wildlife crime.‘.
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The first step to banning….they will never be able to stick within the terms of a modest licence condition…
Circus Maxima. The other way around – Banning is the first step to licensing, if needed. In order to licence anything it has to be unlawful per se, you can’t licence something that in itself is legal as the licence would be irrelevant. Obvious examples: It is unlawful to drive a car on a road, or to posses a firearm – but you can get a licence to do so. The strength is that if you breach the licence it can be withdrawn and the activity has to cease. There are some historic licences which existed simply to give the Govt a tax revenue but provided the terms of the licence are well drafted it will be a strong deterrent.
Well done to the SNP.
I presume Grouse shooting would be banned but then only the acceptable bits covered by any licence conditions.
My concern with only pushing for the driven grouse shooting ban is that firstly you have to define ‘driven’, as at present there is no legal definition. That would leave other grouse shooting as a lawful sport and I suspect some form of shooting would develop that is called something like ‘high yield walked up shooting’ with the same impact on wildlife and the environment.
Interesting comment. What you say about licensing is formally correct and I confess I had not thought of it in exactly that way. It’s also possibly important in that further legislation actually to ban the ‘sport’ might not be needed if its economics are as we think they are and the licensing system is effective and enforced. But of course Circus Maximus is sceptical about that, as am I.
For my part, I think the concern over ‘driven’ is second order: which is not to say it isn’t a possible issue as we go forward.
Sorry about my Latin declension.
Even if you can define ‘driven’, how do you justify a ban on driving grouse. Driving is not the offence with which the industry is charged and there are no welfare or other issues around driving itself. A ban on driving might be a proxy for ending the real offences of illegal and unsustainable management practices but, in real political terms, that might be pretty thin justification for legislation and, as you suggest, may not effectively end the real abuses, though it might damage the market for grouse shooting.
If it is not to be solely about raptors licensing will have to be based on additional regulation of habitat management and improved protection for species like mountain hare, with the latter being much easier to enforce than raptor protection. It will also have to be accompanied by land use change driven by taxation and support measures aimed at limiting the capital value of sporting estates and the economic viability of intensive management.
Much of this is down to your hard work, Mark
Mike – that’s very kind of you – but very little I’d guess. Although, even if it’s very little that’s a source of pleasure in itself.
I applaud the SNP for finally realising how big a problem the driven grouse shooting industry are to our Birds of Prey,and all Wildlife.And the continued relentless Trashing of Our most Important Upland Habitats,Which are as Important as Any of the Worlds Rain Forests,just for the Sole Purpose of Eradicating Everything that is deemed a threat to Red Grouse to Ensure the Maximum Numbers of Grouse which can then be Shot by a few Well Heeled People.This Disgusting Practice Needs Consigning to the History Books.Well Done SNP for this Huge Statement and Message of Intent they are sending out.
This is real movement, at last, particularly as the grouse moor management review group has not even started work. Mairi Gougeon MSP, the species champion for hen harriers is sponsoring a members debate on 13th December at 5pm. I’m sure that this will be one of the subjects raised. I’m also hoping that video evidence in wildlife crime cases will be discussed. I’m certain that members of other parties in Scotland will be supportive giving a massive majority in the parliament when it eventually is taken forward. The usual suspects will, of course, be dismayed and screaming “foul” but as they have been seen not to take meaningful steps themselves, have only themselves to blame.
Best news all year, and yourself, RPUK, the RSPB and raptor groups have, I’m sure, all been major factors. Well done.
Its good to see this debated and accepted as policy by SNP forum, hopefully gives more impetus to Scot Gov Ministers in getting behind this and enacting it. Another small step forward!
Scotland’s wildlife tourism will also benefit from the increase in raptor numbers for visitors to see and ‘shoot’ with cameras 🙂
Thanks to all involved in pushing this forward, let’s keep the momentum – where Scotland lead then England should follow.
This is, indeed, good news, and Mark deserves our congratulations (among others, of course). It is quite exciting times: let’s see how this turns out….
The really great part about this, for those of us in Scotland anyway, is that this renders Gavin’s failed petition completely obsolete. We don’t need to be worried about being dragged back to the petition showing a fading of popular support by the proponents of the shooting industry. It’ll still do a bit of harm, and we’ll still have to deal with the drop in numbers from the previous petition being used as a cudgel to beat the cause, but we can say that the goalposts have been firmly moved on from that and that it is politically settled that grouse shooting does cause harm and needs formally regulated.
Once the legislation for licensing is in place, and pressure has to be on to deliver that promise as soon as is humanly possible, the focus can be on documenting the ongoing abuses and flouting of even a regulated system and moving it towards a ban on that basis. This is what I call advancing the debate and keeping momentum.
We dot need comments like this on here how can it be called a failed petition when already it has 17,537 signatures.
I believe it already has more signatures than other similar petitions managed and has some time left yet.
No way can it be compared to Mark’s petition.How could it when he held a senior position at RSPB and was obviously well known.
Who needs enemy’s when Grouse have friends like Random 22 his writing here does more harm than a gun to the Hen Harrier cause.
Usual nasty dismissal of someones effort,just what we expect.
I have always thought that licensing is step one on the road to a complete ban with one proviso and that is that ant licensing system MUST be vigorously policed with tough penalties in terms of total licence withdrawal for transgression. Anything else actually makes the situation more not less difficult in terms of law enforcement.
According to the ancient Chinese proverb “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. That first and important step has now been taken. There are many more steps to come but congratulations to you Mark, to the RSPB, to the SNP and to all who have been and will need to continue campaigning to bring this nasty, ugly so called “sport” under much better control.