Tag: scotland

Renfrewshire Council chiefs urged to reaffirm opposition to fox hunting

Posted on by

The fall out from the leaked Hunting Office webinars has crossed the border into Scotland, with a report in today’s Daily Record quoting Renfrewshire Council’s elected member Audrey Doig asking the local authority to “reaffirm its position that no fox hunting activities will be allowed to occur on any land or property owned or managed by Renfrewshire Council”. Fox hunting is of course illegal in Scotland. It was banned under the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, but as the campaigning charity One Kind points out, “Before the ban in 2002 there were ten operational mounted fox hunts in Scotland. There are still ten today. According to the hunts themselves, they kill about 800 foxes every year.” One of those hunts is the notorious Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire Foxhounds. The Glasgow Hunt Sabs regularly report the illegal activities of this hunt on their Facebook page. This includes a savage attack in October this year on a lone hunt monitor by hunt followers (covered in the Daily Record under the headline “Disabled man viciously battered by vile blood sport thugs after he protests at Scots fox hunt”).

Continue reading

Scotland | Licencing sends Grouse industry into meltdown

Posted on by

After ignoring every warning they’ve ever been given that unless things change Scotland’s government was going to be forced into doing something about grouse moors, the industry is shaking its collective head in faux-shock and faux-indignation that Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment Mairi Gougeon has decided that self-regulation hasn’t worked (“self-regulation alone will not be enough to end the illegal killing of raptors”) and has stated in parliament that, “I believe that the Government needs to act…and begin developing a licensing scheme now”. Ms Gougeon also said that the Scottish government planned to regulate the use of medicated grit (trays of the stuff litter grouse moors), and to license muirburn, the controversial practice of burning old heather to promote younger growth for grouse to feed on. This fetid industry should have been gone long ago. It doesn’t deserve the opportunity to survive that licencing gives them, but it’s so unlikely that shooting can stop behaving like a delinquent it will end up closing itself down within a few years anyway…

Continue reading

Herald Scotland Poll | Grouse shooting in Scotland: Are you for or against?

Posted on by

The grouse shooting industry has been fighting a rearguard battle lately, attempting to sell its message of ‘Game is Good’ amidst a tidal wave of reports of raptor persecution, the widespread use of traps and snares, Mountain Hare culls, and burning moorland. Adding to their woes is an increasing backlash against killing hundreds of thousands of wild birds for ‘fun’ and arising awareness of animal sentience. It’ll be interesting then to see how the industry responds to a poll by The Herald (a Scottish broadsheet which is the longest running national newspaper in the world and the eighth oldest daily paper in the world) which has closed after asking its readers ‘Are you For or Against Grouse Shooting’ .

Continue reading

Interview: Meeting Mr Carbo

Posted on by

“A cartoon has to have an immediate impact,” says David Mitchell (aka Mr Carbo, which is of course derived from the keeper’s favourite – and illegal – raptor poison Carbofuran). We’re talking over Skype for a possible Hen Harrier Day article, and I’ve asked him how he thinks his cartoons might differ from something like the written blog posts they’re often published with. “It’s concise.There’s no pussyfooting about. I go for the jugular. Mr Carbo and the cartoons came about as a visual method of countering the crap from the pro shooting lobby. It’s my way of sticking two fingers up and saying this is how bloody stupid you people are.”

Continue reading

Podcast: Elaine Rainey | Getting the most from being outside

Posted on by

Welcome to a podcast made to support Wild Wellbeing week, a project being run as part of Let’s Notice Nature, a joint initiative of Scottish Badgers and the Scottish Wildlife Trust delivered as part of the National Lottery supported ‘Earn Your Stripes’ project – a skills development programme promoting diversity and social inclusion. To bring together a wealth of tips and practical suggestions for getting the most of your time outside, Charlie Moores talked with Elaine Rainey, Project Officer for Scottish Badgers.

Continue reading

Scottish Badger Week 2020

Posted on by

We were contacted last week by Scottish Badgers, an independent Scottish charity founded in 1999 with encouragement from the Scottish Government, who perceived a need for a non-statutory body to work in this field. Scottish Badgers cooperates closely with the Badger Trust, whose activities cover all the other areas of the British Isles.ould we perhaps help your charity via a guest post or a podcast as well, we asked? Well, how about helping out with our Wild Wellbeing week which starts 18th May? Right up our street, we said, should be fun!

Continue reading

Podcast: Checking in with Bob Elliot, Director of OneKind

Posted on by

Here at The War on Wildlife Project we were thinking that as us campaigners, conservationists, and activists can’t get out to meet and see each other now, how about creating something to bring the conservation community together – everyone from individuals to grassroots organisations to larger charities – something that reminds us all that we’re still out there, still working, but that also shows the human side of things during this COVID-19 crisis. We could think of them as ‘check-ins’ – as in ‘checking-in to make sure we’re all okay’.

Continue reading

Coul Links development refused

Posted on by

A positive story for a change – and one that may have gone under many people’s radar : a planned ‘luxury’ golf course development on Coul Links, a beautiful, natural coastal dune system to the immediate south of Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve in East Sutherland, Scotland, has been refused. Why, writes Charlie Moores, was the development turned down so late in the day? Could the government in Scotland understand that the public are just fed up with our most precious places being threatened by developments that benefit so few but whose losses are felt by so many…

Continue reading