Written evidence from Scottish Moorland Group (GRO0224)

Executive summary

The Scottish Moorland Group strongly opposes the Petition to ban driven grouse shooting because of:

 

1)    The Scottish Moorland Group / Scottish perspective

The Scottish Moorland Group (SMG) is a part of Scottish Land & Estates, specialising in moorland issues and representing hundreds of grouse moor owners, managers and employees. 

Tim Baynes is Director of the Scottish Moorland Group and is already closely involved in a number of Scottish stakeholder initiatives to foster moorland management best practice and to resolve areas of conflict including raptor persecution.

Matters affecting grouse shooting and moorland management are devolved to the Scottish Government so this debate will not directly affect Scotland.  However, all 59 Scottish MPs are able to attend the debate, the issues giving rise to it are common to the whole of the UK, and there would be considerable knock-on effects from any change of law in England.  We are particularly concerned that any change in England would impact on the free movement of highly skilled keepers – many of them move to jobs on either side of the border and Scotland may not be able to sustain the training and experience on its own. 

Many of the issues mentioned in the Petition have already been addressed in Scotland where similar “scatter gun” criticism of grouse moors was commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports in 2015.  The wording of this Petition, for instance the phrase “uses animals for live target practice, with thousands killed every day”, also betrays the underlying motive of minority opposition to all types of shooting rather than specific issues on moorland management. 

The previous petitions by Mark Avery to ban driven grouse shooting attracted many fewer signatures and this one has only exceeded 100,000 because of aggressive marketing to the public in the last two months, including distribution of leaflets to households in Edinburgh and to Festival goers in the street.  This shows that it is the support of the wider animal right movement rather than people with experience of moorland management which has generated the necessary number of signatures for a debate, and the Petition needs to be seen and questioned in that light. 

One of the most fundamental implications of a ban on grouse shooting for the uplands is that the privately funded and environmentally beneficial management would need to be replaced with a regime that was at least as good.  We understand that Mark Avery’s plan for replacing the £100,000,000 plus per annum which is invested in the UK uplands each year by grouse moor owners is a vague hope that post-Brexit there will be some redistribution of agricultural/public funding and that some of this would filter through to support upland environmental schemes.

 

2)    In response to the three specific questions  

2a) Should the law on grouse shooting be changed? If so, how? 

The law on grouse shooting should not be changed.  To ban driven grouse shooting would be an extraordinary measure, it is unjustified, it would have very serious implications for the upland economy, wildlife and communities, and it would in practice be unworkable because of the difficulty of defining “driven” shooting or fairly enforcing any restriction.

 

2b) What effect does grouse shooting have on wildlife and the environment?

Grouse moors harvest a sustainable surplus of grouse as the primary management objective but this is part of a holistic upland management system developed over centuries, allied with sheep grazing.  In England, some 60% of moorland is designated as Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of the traditional management system which has developed a unique habitat and assemblage of wildlife.

Looking after the habitat by rotational cool muirburn is at the heart of that system.  The UK has 75% of the world’s resource of open heather moorland and grouse moor management has prevented much reversion of this rare habitat to scrub woodland, which is a common habitat.  Where moors are not managed for grouse shooting, a significantly more degraded habitat often develops.  Grouse moor management has also enabled the Red grouse to survive – the only bird unique to Britain, found only on moorland, and which has gradually died out in areas where shooting management is not practised – for instance Dartmoor, Exmoor, the Lake District, many parts of Wales and the west of Scotland.  Without grouse shooting, the SSSI obligations on English moorland would then either be lost or would have to be underpinned by the public purse.

Legal predator control is the other key element in grouse moor management.  There is scientific research evidence including the GWCT Otterburn Project of the beneficial impact (of controlling foxes, crows and mustelids) on an assemblage of birds that are increasingly rare in other parts of the country - for instance Black grouse and waders such as Curlew, Golden plover and Lapwing.  If predator control was not funded by grouse shooting income it would only take place at a much lower level and those birds would gradually die out. 

Evidence from the Langholm Project in South Scotland  shows how quickly predators such as foxes regain dominance after keepering is stopped and the impact on birds which is very hard to reverse again.  There is clear evidence for this in those parts of the country where management has been lost for other reasons, such as the Berwyn Mountains, North Wales. 

The opening section of a report by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust shows what happens when grouse shooting ceases as it has in most of Wales:

 

To summarise, a loss of grouse shooting would mean a gradual loss of an almost unique and protected habitat and bird assemblage which is an integral part of the open purple heather landscape of the UK uplands, so prized by visitors and residents alike.  It is significant that Natural Resources Wales have are now considering incentives to reintroduce grouse moor management in mid-Wales to halt the decades of decline in habitat and birds. 

 

2c) What role does grouse shooting play in rural life, especially the rural economy?

Grouse moor management, funded by shooting, is the dominant form of land management in certain parts of the English uplands (mainly the Pennines, the Peak District and the North York Moors), usually in conjunction with sheep grazing.  It attracts significant investment from the private sector because there is a strong and continuing market demand for grouse shooting, which is not dependent on subsidies.  Contrary to allegations made by anti-grouse shooting campaigners, grouse shooting attract no subsidies – it is only the farming businesses on that land which are subsidised, as they are on all other farmland. 

In those parts of the country, driven grouse shooting is a significant employer – not only full time keepers but also casual labour such as beaters and pickers-up on shoot days. The employment and investment is significantly greater than the main management alternatives of forestry and pure stock farming.  There is a well documented “flow down” effect of grouse shooting income to other trades – for instance builders, vehicle maintenance, hospitality providers, road and fence contractors.  It also supports many other cultural activities such as working gundogs and the breeding and field trial culture around that, which brings fulfilment to many people.

Grouse moor management is necessary for the ecology of the uplands (as stated earlier, 60% of English moorland is SSSI protected), for remote communities because of the lack of alternative employment, and for a culture unique to the British uplands. 

 

3)    The second part of this submission tackles specific moorland management issues raised in the Petition. 

3a) …often leads to the deliberate illegal killing of protected birds of prey including Hen Harriers.   

This is really the key issue in the Petition.   Any killing or disturbance of any raptor species is illegal and the Scottish Moorland Group is clear in its condemnation of any persecution.  

The particular debate over Hen Harriers and grouse moors has been going on for many years and has been the subject of joint scientific research, particularly on Langholm Moor in South Scotland.  It is a complex situation which needs a balanced solution. 

The dilemma is that grouse moors provide a good environment for Harriers (food supply and protection from predators) but the Harriers can then breed at densities where they eat so many young grouse as to render grouse shooting unviable.  Langholm also demonstrated the knock on effect on other moorland birds such as waders. Increases in other birds of prey such as Buzzards and raven exacerbate the problem.  It also showed that Harrier numbers reduced due to predation when grouse management was withdrawn, so to ban grouse shooting is scientifically proven not to be the answer. It is widely accepted that both grouse shooting and harrier conservation need to continue together, and that was the premise of the latest Langholm Moor Demonstration Project

The logical solution would be to enable careful management of Hen Harrier (or other raptor) numbers so that they did not reach the levels at which grouse shooting becomes unviable, ie. to remove the reason behind persecution and retain the moorland management benefits.  But this compromise is almost impossible to implement under the EU Birds Directive, especially for a Schedule 1 bird which is now in poor conservation status in England (estimated 3 pairs), although it is a different situation in Scotland where there are over 500 breeding pairs.

The statutory agencies (Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage) under DEFRA have given a lead through support for the Langholm Project and more recently by developing a six point “Hen Harrier Action Plan”

This solution was summarised in the initial Government response to the Petition and will involve:

1: Monitoring of (Harrier) populations in England and UK

2: Diversionary feeding (of Harriers at breeding time)

3: Work with Raptor Persecution Priority Delivery Group (RPPDG) to analyse monitoring information and build intelligence picture

4: Nest and winter roost protection

5: Southern reintroduction (of Harriers into lowland situations)

6: Trialling a Brood Management Scheme (temporary removal of surplus harriers to reduce their impact)

This plan was agreed between the main stakeholder groups, including the Moorland Association and the RSPB, representing the two sides in the debate and offers the way ahead, in conjunction with the Langholm Project.  It proposes some strong measures to safeguard Harriers from persecution, some proven and some innovative methods of mitigating their impact.  It has been supported by the Hawk and Owl Trust and moderate elements of the raptor lobby, and offers a “road map” for breaking down the impasse.

Unfortunately just four months after agreeing to support the plan (March 2016), the RSPB withdrew from it (July 2016) and it has not had a chance to work.  We believe this is a betrayal of many years of careful work and is closely connected to the determined efforts of Mark Avery and others on social media to ridicule anyone who supports a compromise.

In Scotland, there has been a much greater focus on collaborative initiatives such as “Heads Up For Harriers”,  the “South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project” and the “East Cairngorms Moorland Partnership” which all focus directly on raptor conservation.  More generally the “Understanding Predation” project is leading to adaptive management as a way out of predator/prey conflicts.  We believe that collaboration and compromise is the only sensible way ahead and it is starting to bring results in Scotland. 

Unfortunately, these efforts to collaborate by land managers and conservationists in Scotland are being undermined by the same people that are behind this Petition, and their motives need to be questioned.

 

3b) Grouse shooting for 'sport' depends on intensive habitat management which increases flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions,  

This is unproven.  Catastrophic flooding episodes (for instance at Hebden Bridge and on Deeside less than a year ago) are becoming more frequent due to climate change and high rainfall episodes which saturate the ground whatever the vegetation on it. Certainly there is an argument for strategic land management measures to help control flooding but well managed muirburn ensures that vegetation on a moor is being constantly regenerated to absorb normal rainfall, it does not leave bare ground.

The impact of muirburn generally has been the subject of research in the last 10 years, but much of it seems to have been driven by anti grouse management publicity and has been strongly debated.  This was brought to a head by analysis in a report published by the Royal Society in May 2016 entitled:

“The role of fire in UK peatland and moorland management: the need for informed, unbiased debate”.   Section 3 (c) included the following:

With regard to the papers we assessed above, for both Yallop et al. [99] and Douglas et al. [18], the subsequent reporting in the media from associated press releases unfortunately did not focus on the strengths of their research findings. Instead, the press releases used the papers as an opportunity to make tangential and provocative inferences about associated issues. The almost hysterical headlines of some news items were particularly striking (table 1). The tone of many of these articles was staunchly anti-burning and focused on purported negative impacts of fire, even if this bore little relationship to the studies' actual focus. Many media articles concerning managed burning appear to be highly biased. For example, in the case of Pearce [115], the focus, C losses as a result of burning, was not measured in the work reported by the scientific paper on which it was reporting [99], and the quotes and narrative it contained were highly speculative.

Muirburn is a greenhouse gas neutral operation.  Burning releases carbon and the regrowth locks it up – similar to growing a crop of trees and using the timber for fuel.

 

3c) Native predators (Foxes, Stoats) are killed because they eat Red Grouse. 

That is true, and they are also controlled because they predate on all ground nesting birds including heavily protected species such as Hen Harrier, merlin, black grouse , curlew, golden  plover, lapwing etc.  Stoats are important predators of mountain hares as well as birds. Foxes also kill lambs and sheep grazing on grouse moors. Control of foxes is a vital part of rural land management and may be incentivised under SRDP.  But for the most part it is a service carried out by the private sector at no cost to the public.  All of these predator species are highly resilient, and local control will only contain their numbers. 

 

3d) Mountain Hares are killed because they carry ticks that can spread diseases to grouse.

Mountain hares thrive on managed grouse moors and can be found there at much higher densities than anywhere else in Europe. The regime of muirburn and particularly predator control helps hares and their number fluctuate in cycles of up to 10 years.  When numbers are high they are managed by culling.  Hares are an important vector of sheep tick and the diseases carried by ticks, such as louping ill which affect sheep and grouse, and Lyme disease which is having an increasing impact on humans.  Hares numbers are also managed to protect tree planting schemes, and sometimes to protect fragile montane habitats from grazing pressure.  Hare culls are carried out humanely by shooting, and moorland managers assess numbers and breeding trends before a decision to cull – it is time consuming operation so not undertaken lightly.    Campaigners such as Mark Avery, RSPB and LACS have alleged that hares are being “wiped out” on grouse moors – that is demonstrably untrue.

 

3e) Heather is burned to increase Red Grouse numbers for shooting. 

That is true; well managed muirburn is an integral part of grouse moor management.  It is a positive process which has developed over centuries and achieves much more than just increased numbers of red grouse – it regenerates heather for the iconic purple landscape, prevents colonisation  of scrub woodland, provides grazing for sheep, limits the impact of wildfires and creates a mixed age habitat on which many bird species thrive.

 

3f) Grouse shooting is economically, ecologically and socially unnecessary. This is 'canned hunting'. 

Like any other form of shooting, stalking or fishing, it is the act of taking the quarry which people primarily pay for, but grouse are also a premium food which is being sold in a growing number of outlets.   It is certainly not “canned hunting” which implies that the quarry is fenced in.  Grouse are wild and can move around without any barriers apart from their own natural needs and instincts.

 

T. P Baynes, Director, the Scottish Moorland Group

October 2016