Chamber and committees

Alex Matossian submission of 26 August 2021

PE1859/D - Retain falconers rights to practice upland falconry in Scotland

The Scottish Government commissioned the Grouse Moor Management Review Group (GMMRG) established in November 2017. The remit (i) examining environmental impact of grouse moor management practices, in particular ‘the three Ms’ (Muirburn, Medicated Grit and Mountain Hares) and (ii) to advise on the option of licensing grouse shooting businesses. The Report was released by the Scottish Government on 19th December 2019. The recommendation of the Report was that a licensing scheme be introduced if, within five years, there were no marked improvement in the ecological sustainability of grouse moor management as evidenced by populations of breeding Golden Eagles, Hen Harriers and Peregrines on or within the vicinity of grouse moors.

The principal recommendation of the Report in relation to Mountain Hares is a legal obligation to report numbers of Mountain Hares where shooting takes place with the data gathering to be led by SNH (now NatureScot) and if the population status were found to be unfavourable (per EC Habitats Directive) a licensing system should be introduced. Note that the Report recommended the use of licensing for Mountain Hare Control only if their population were found to be ‘unfavourable’ following counts by NatureScot.

No such counts have yet been completed – NatureScot therefore do not claim to have knowledge of Mountain Hare numbers and thus classify their status as ‘unfavourable with inadequate data’ ie. Their status is unfavourable only in that their numbers/status are not known and so there is no evidence that their numbers are a cause of concern. NatureScot anticipate that a true overview of the situation of Mountain Hares in Scotland will take several years as population numbers will vary in a cyclical timescale.

Upon release of the Report the Environment Secretary stated that careful consideration would be given to the recommendations and other evidence, involving meeting key stakeholders to discuss the findings.

In the following months Covid-19 became a global pandemic – Scotland was locked down on 23rd March 2020. During that devastating period where everyone’s lives changed dramatically, many lives also lost and many blighted by the consequences, the nation’s public’s focus was on the daily Covid updates. However during this time the Parliament considered and passed the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protection and Powers)(Scotland) Bill, including an amendment from Alison Johnstone MSP. This Bill went largely unnoticed by Scottish citizens, except by pressure groups with specific questionable agendas and, in my view, a motivation to bend the truth, by-pass protocol and/or fabricate ‘data’ which supports and accelerates the direction of their demands. The amendment reclassifies the Mountain Hare as protected all year round and is largely aimed at preventing mass culls of thousands of Mountain Hares. However, I believe that the options under which licences may now be issued betray a truth that the legislation leaves much to be desired. The aspect which obviously concerns myself/falconers who may wish to occasionally hunt a very limited number of Mountain Hares with a raptor in the Scottish uplands is the fact that to do so is now summarily illegal.

The recommendations concerning mountain hares in the Werritty Report appear to have been disregarded.

NatureScot advised that they were never consulted about the amendment and thus never given the opportunity to advise inter alia how it might discriminate against falconry and or how that could be avoided/resolved. They also advised that they would have had no hesitation to consider appropriate applications by individual falconers with a view to granting individual licences 'for the purposes of falconry' as the numbers so taken would be totally insignificant.

However, that is unfortunately not one of the options under which a licence to take Mountain Hares can now be considered due to a probably unintended omission in the original Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981: Section 16 ‘Power to Grant Licences’ Subsection (1) of the Act is a list, relating particularly to 'wild birds', of exemptions under which licences may be granted by relevant agencies and (e) on that list is ‘for the purposes of falconry or aviculture’. Subsection (3) of Section 16 of the Act is also a similar list, but relating particularly to 'wild animals', of exemptions under which licences may be granted. However, the exemption ‘for the purposes of falconry’ is absent in subsection (3) and NatureScot say that there is no good reason that they can identify nor support why it is absent.

I request that the Committee take oral evidence from NatureScot and that inadequacies be addressed by preparing toward amendment of Section 16 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act to enable NatureScot to issue licences to individual falconers for the taking of a limited number of mountain hares for the purposes of falconry.