Grouse shooting season starts up

The BASC said grouse shooting was worth �240m a year to the economy

The four-month grouse shooting season has got under way on the day known as the "Glorious Twelfth".

Sporting estates in the Borders and the north of England are hoping for a record year.

However, the number of grouse in the Highlands is said to have been affected by the cold, wet spring.

The League Against Cruel Sports and the RSPB have raised concerns that bird of prey populations were falling in areas where there was grouse moor management.

The Scottish Countryside Alliance and the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) have both highlighted the economic benefits of shooting for rural Scotland.

Sporting estates are playing several vital roles in the Scottish countryside Geva Blackett Scottish Countryside Alliance

The BASC claimed that a total of 1.5 million gun days were worth �240m a year to the Scottish economy.

It said sporting estates had worked hard to protect the environment and were being unfairly blamed for the illegal killing of birds of prey.

Geva Blackett, chief executive of Scottish Countryside Alliance, said: "Sporting estates are playing several vital roles in the Scottish countryside.

"Their land management keeps down numbers of predators such as foxes, and this in turn helps birds such as the lapwing and curlew to thrive.

"They also employ keepers, use local businesses and act as a hub of economic activity in rural areas that really need the boost to the economy."

Shooting provided the equivalent of 13,000 full-time conservation and shooting jobs and �43m a year was spent on improving habitat and wildlife management, it claimed.

But the RSPB has published research which, it claimed, showed the number of golden eagles were continuing to fall in parts of Scotland where grouse moor management predominated.

The League Against Cruel Sports chairman, John Cooper, said: "It is utterly ridiculous to label an industry which depends on the mass slaughter of wildlife for entertainment purposes as glorious.

"Barbaric and immoral would be far more appropriate under these circumstances."

The red grouse is a wild, ground-nesting bird of the heather moorlands, unique to the UK.

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