SCOTLAND’S shooting season starts today, with hunters flocking to the moors seeking out grouse.
But there are calls to make this the last-ever “Glorious Twelfth”.
The Scottish Greens are demanding an end to “the cruel Victorian hobby, enjoyed by very few people”.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association said the Greens were treating “working-class land managers with complete and unhidden disrespect”.
Much of the controversy surrounding the season comes from way in which the land is managed to maximise the number of red grouse available for shooting.
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That’s led to clashes over the disappearance of raptors over grouse driven moors, including a Golden Eagle called Tom, who vanished this week. Green MSP John Finnie said: “There’s nothing glorious about the August 12 or about the intensive and damaging killing, burning and degradation of our landscape that is associated with driven grouse shooting,”
He added: “It’s time for the Scottish Government to get off the fence, come into the 21st century and end this cruel practice.”
Tim Baynes, moorland director at Scottish Land & Estates, said: “In the midst of a global pandemic, which has buffeted the rural economy, it is astonishing that the Scottish Green Party call for measures that would decimate highly skilled rural jobs.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association said: “The fact the Scottish Government requires the support of the Green Party is one of the principal reasons the Government is losing credibility and alienating voters in the countryside.”
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