The Scottish government has started a six-week consultation on the complete ban of snares. The review also includes extending the Scottish SPCA’s powers to investigate wildlife crimes. Scotland’s environment minister Gillian Martin said: “More effective and humane forms of managing wildlife are available and we will continue to support the industry to make use of these methods.” However, upland keeper Lindsay Waddell told ST that snares are a vital tool and commented: “If politicians ignore the peer-reviewed science, of which there is plenty, and simply bend to those who shout loudest, then I fear for the future of our ground-nesting birds. “Those who would see the snare banned will end up shedding tears when [ground-nesting birds] become extinct as breeding birds in this country. The sad thing is, they will never admit why it happened.” The new provisions could be included in the Scottish’s government’s upcoming Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill. Antis
Activists from all over the country targeted several shoots in Coverdale and Nidderdale, with a number of saboteurs disrupting a shooting party on Braithwaite Moor near East Witton. West Yorkshire Hunt Saboteurs claimed they were able to stop the shoots “with ease”. After targeting a shoot at Heathfield Moor, Nidderdale, the group said in a post on social media: “As is tradition on the Glorious Twelfth, sab groups from all over the country were out in force and we found our first target early on.” Posting on their website soon after the protests, the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) had members from Somerset, Wiltshire, Nottingham and Yorkshire providing pictures of themselves interrupting shoots and posing in grouse butts after the shooters had left the scene. The HSA detailed their tactics, involving specialist spotting units out across much of upland Britain from daybreak. They went on to boast of the number of shoots all over Nidderdale that they were able to bring to a com
Red grouse tests positive for avian influenza in Scotland shootinguk.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from shootinguk.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shooting Times understands that United Utilities, Britain’s biggest water company and also Britain’s largest corporate landowner, is going to end grouse shooting across its 56,000-hectare holding by way of not renewing any grouse shooting leases when they come to an end. Anti-grouse shooting campaigners, including Luke Steele, the executive director of Wild Moors, said that the news was “amazing” and claimed that it reflects the values of those who “believe wildlife and habitats should be protected and enhanced”. The shooting community and a suite of practical conservationists took a very different stance. Lindsay Waddell, veteran grousekeeper and former chairman of the National Gamekeepers’ Association, told ST that it is another sorry chapter “in the drip, drip, drip against the management of the uplands”. Mr Waddell said the decision will almost certainly see all keepers losing their jobs. When that happens, he continued, predator control will end and “the densit
Grouse shooting leases pulled on United Utilities land shootinguk.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from shootinguk.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.