Tag: mountain hare

The Scottish Government have finally confirmed they will implement a Scottish Greens amendment to protect Mountain Hares under the proposed Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act. The amendment came on the back of a 2019 report by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee to the EU which revealed that Scotland’s Mountain Hare populations have experienced a major decline [BTO Breeding Bird Survey mammal data concluded that there had been notable decreases in mountain hare populations in 108 of the 316 10km squares for which the species was assessed in Scotland between 1995/99 and 2011/15 time periods].The report led to the conservation status of the Mountain Hare being downgraded to unfavourable, which meant that special conservation action needed to be undertaken to halt further declines and aid their recovery. The amendment means that Mountain Hares will only be permitted to be killed under licence (for example to ‘protect’ forestry operations), and will effectively end the mass-scale killing on grouse moors.

“In June your support helped get my amendment passed in the Scottish Parliament to make mountain hares a protected species and to bring about an end to their mass slaughter on Scotland’s grouse moors. It was an important victory in its own right and also because it’s the first time that decisive action has been taken against wildlife persecution on Scotland’s grouse moors. Sadly, however, the Scottish Government has yet to deliver this protection. The open season is due to start again and killing mountain hares without licence can commence once more from today. We must not let this happen. You’ve already helped so much, but we need to make another push.” Alison Johnstone MSP, 01 Aug 2020

Some remarkably good news. The Scottish parliament has just voted to protect Mountain Hares. This is a huge blow to the intensive grouse industry which has been massacring hares in huge numbers to ‘protect’ the artificially high numbers of Red Grouse they farm for the gun. Like birds of prey, stoats, weasels, corvids and whatever else the ‘industry’ decide should be eradicated, Mountain Hares have been relentlessly targeted much to the gloating amusement of the estate’s gamekeepers who have been caught parading vehicles rammed to the gills with dead hares far too often – which undoubtedly has helped cause the public to vote in favour of their victims and against them.