Scottish grouse law is ‘ruinous’ - Fieldsports News, 27 March 2024

[@waikarimoana]

Another great show, i have seen Markhor goats when i was younger 50 or so years ago, magnificent animal they are.Great video team, thanks and greetings from NZ,, Tony.

[@charlesgould1962]

Comes a time when we have to say no.

[@Wyrm1701]

What you have to remember is that the heather moorland is not a stable habitat. It is one stage in the succession from the bare rock stage after an Ice Age and the end stable stage of oak or Caledonian Scots wildwood. The problem is that to get to the end stage, you need a full suite of herbivores and predators, and those do not now exist in Scotland. Heather moor and spagnum bog are two transient stages of this succession. Heather moor in particular is vanishingly rare internationally, and the only thing holding it in place here is management for grouse shooting. Managing a moor to maximise heather cover is expensive, and it has been shown that one single day of grouse shooting will bring in more money than an entire year of eco-tourism. This BTW is why the RSPB is such a subsidy-hog; it cannot otherwise survive unless heavily subsidised and even when hosed with money, still does its job poorly. A final point is that heather moor is prone to wildfire events. So is spagnum bog if you let it dry out; the large areas of peatland in Britain only developed in the Bronze Age when the local climate took a turn for the worse and became wet and cooler (and the human population developed a fascination with astronomy, hence stone circles). Heather moor is flammable in the extreme and the very worst thing you can do is to stop managing it and allow it to run wild, long and woody. Doing so allows a fuel load to develop, which burns hot enough to get into the underlying peat and destroy centuries of peat deposition. This is the moral dilemma that the Great Green Blob now have to try to get their heads around: do they let very rich people enjoy themselves and expensively shoot what ecologists term the doomed surplus production of grouse on a moor in return for that habitat being kept in tip-top condition, or do they try to prohibit this shooting and land themselves and the taxpayer with an expensive white elephant which they are ill-prepared to managed but which will cause them no end of trouble if they do not manage it? They'll get this wrong, you watch.

[@WBW-vt9pf]

I find the whole thing an abomination . While Capercaillie dwindle to an unrecoverable population , Curlew ,Lapwing Redshank etc are facing a very bleak future, the Bird charities are still focused on flooding the skies with as many aerial predators as possible. It is a disgrace. I would possibly have a modicum of respect for these charities if their own house was in order and the land they own was full of the many species that we have fought to preserve . The truth is , a visit I made to Abernethy was one of utter dismay at the lack of diversity . In a two hour trip around the place , I saw one Carrion Crow ! With the new fad of re wilding taking place , our upland wildlife really do face an uncertain future. Once an estate is bought by someone with scant regard for the work their neighbours have put in for generations, it then becomes incredibly difficult for the sporting estate to address the vermin that comes from over the boundary. I fear for the future of our countryside and it's wildlife. Laws are now being passed that will in my opinion make it virtually impossible to carry out the job legally .

[@tomjones7593]

Proportionate and workable legislation ? From that rabble ? I'm afraid that was never going to happen. (I wonder if I have just created a Hate Crime ?)

[@NatNay-cu3uv]

Be careful or you'll be on a watch list No more flying for you See 🇨🇳 china

[@ddoherty5956]

Considering they mostly work on behalf of foreign agencies it's probably straight racism 🤣🤣🤣

[@MrMuff13]

@@ddoherty5956 yeh thi land owners

[@ddoherty5956]

Its just not the same without PeTeresa Greenham. 😢😢😢😉

[@ddoherty5956]

Is this private members bill on behalf of the majority of this MPs electorate or is it due to his own personal views, in which case it should immediately be dismissed!

[@alanarmer8069]

👍👍🦌🦌🦌🦌🐕🐕🐕👍👍