Policy should reflect environmental needs

Madam, – I am writing to take issue with the claims made by various organisations aligned with the game-shooting lobby (“Watershed” claim over grouse moor controversy, Courier, October 8).

Based on the Langholm Moor study, they claim keepered grouse moors benefit populations of curlew, golden plover and snipe. This is dubious. Thirty to forty years ago a density of 30 to 40 red grouse per square kilometre was seen as enough for a viable shoot.

But today densities have been forced up to between 150 to 500 per square kilometres.

This huge rise in grouse is partly due to developments like catching and medicating them during darkness and the increased culling of hares which is claimed, but not proven, to reduce tick-borne diseases.

In addition they have fenced out red deer on some shoots and increased the use of fenn type traps, which have been shown to catch a variety of non-target species from wagtails through to ring ousels and hedgehogs.

When prey increases, the number of predators rise too.

Given the dramatic rise in red grouse numbers over the years it can be reliably acknowledged that predator numbers would increase in tandem.

When the grouse are shot in large numbers the predators turn to other prey, thus increasing the pressure on these vulnerable species, whose numbers are not artificially inflated and have suffered greatly from modern farming practices and loss of habitat.

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) found there were more predators in areas of high game bird abundance.

This indicates the practices of the shooting lobby are responsible for the increased number of predators, and they wish to justify killing them by stating their policies protect other birds.

They create a problem, claim they have the solution and use it to attempt to further their own environmentally destructive activities.

The numbers of curlews, golden plovers and snipe have fallen sharply over the last 20 years.

This is only one of many problems with driven grouse shoots and maybe it’s time to call an end to them and for the government to begin to formulate policy, with the needs of our environment taking priority.

George Murdoch. 4 Auchcairnie Cotts, Laurencekirk.