Rob Edwards

Growing campaign to ban landowners from shooting grouse

from Sunday Herald, 27 March 2016

A new campaign to ban landowners from mass shooting grouse on sporting estates was backed by over 10,000 people last week, including TV naturalists, conservationists and animal welfare groups.

The move comes in the wake of mounting concern about the illegal poisoning or shooting of birds of prey, and large-scale culls of mountain hares. Raptors and hares are killed in order to protect grouse so that there are more available to be shot for sport.

A petition calling on the UK government to ban driven grouse shooting, which can kill thousands of birds a day, was launched last Sunday. By late Friday it had gathered over 10,800 signatures, enough to ensure that the government must respond.

One of the first to sign was Chris Packham, a presenter of the BBC’s Springwatch, Autumwatch and Winterwatch programmes. “Real conservationists have run out of patience with the illegal persecution of raptors and the continued abuse of our uplands which are drained, burned and denuded of life,” he said.

“We want the law to be upheld and sustainable management implemented, that’s all, and in a reasonable world that wouldn’t be a big ask.”

Supermarket under fire over farmed salmon

from Sunday Herald, 27 March 2016

Sainsbury’s has been accused of breaking a promise not to sell salmon from farms infested with lice in breach of guideline limits.

The angling group, Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland (S&TCS), has attacked the supermarket chain for continuing to market caged salmon from the north west coast of Scotland that could harm wild fish.

Salmon farms have long had a problem with sea lice, tiny natural parasites that eat fish alive. Lice can multiply in cages holding many thousands of salmon, and then spread to passing wild young salmon and sea trout and kill them.

S&TCS complained a year ago that Sainsbury’s salmon came from fish farms that failed to meet industry guidelines on lice infestation. The group was then assured by company managers that the problem was being dealt with, and lice infestations would end.

But S&TCS says that lice levels on salmon farms at Loch Duich, Loch Alsh and Ardintoul near the Isle of Skye breached the industry’s good practice code in the last three months of 2015. In December average levels reached nearly seven adult female lice per fish, compared to a recommended threshold of one.

Queen’s estate accused of mass killing mountain hares

from Sunday Herald, 20 March 2016

The Queen has been urged to step in and stop her estate in Scotland from killing hundreds of mountain hares in the wake of new evidence of mass culls in the Cairngorms.

Delnadamph, which is part of Her Majesty’s Balmoral estate in Aberdeenshire, has been accused of working with neighbouring estates to shoot large numbers of hares. Two culls involving three estates were witnessed towards the end of February, one of which was said to have killed 500 hares.

The allegations have been made by the veteran Cairngorm scientist, Dr Adam Watson, who says he has reliable accounts from eyewitnesses and other informed sources. The two alleged culls are in addition to the mass killing suggested by a photograph of a pickup truck full of dead hares on the Lecht published by The Ferret and others.

“In each case, a brutal military-type operation occurred, with scores of quad bikes and snow scooters driving the hares up to armed staff hidden higher up, and frequent bangs from guns,” Watson said.

“These severe killings show no respect for the public or for wildlife under stress during snowy weather.”

Landowners insist that shooting hares is perfectly legal, and doesn’t jeopardise their populations. But Watson argues that mass killings are in breach of European law because they are indiscriminate and damage the animals’ conservation status.

Westminster blunder deprives Scotland of anti-litter laws

from Sunday Herald, 20 March 2016

Westminster has admitted mistakenly depriving Scottish councils of powers to force businesses to clean up litter, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The Home Office in London has confessed it made a legislative “error” when it repealed sections of an environmental protection act without realising that they applied to Scotland.

As a result local authorities north of the border no longer have legal authority to issue notices requiring companies to install rubbish bins and take other measures to prevent littering. They also can’t order public bodies to clean up their land.

The Scottish environment minister, Richard Lochhead, has accused UK ministers of having “a rubbish attitude towards Scotland’s rubbish”. He is writing to the Home Office minister, Mike Penning, demanding “urgent action” to rectify the blunder.

“Laws over litter and the environment are rightly devolved to the Scottish Parliament but the Tories at Westminster have gone ahead and repealed them without even informing the Scottish Parliament,” said Lochhead.

“It’s now over fifteen years since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, but that news doesn’t seem to have reached some parts of Whitehall yet. I am asking the UK government to reinstate the provisions they repealed – and what measures they are taking to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

The Home Office’s mistake was made when it was repealing sections 92-94A of the 1990 Environmental Protection Act so they could be replaced by new powers in the 2014 Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act.

Precious bay will be damaged by dredging, warn wildlife groups

from Sunday Herald, 13 March 2016

A government move to allow scallop dredging in one of Scotland’s most precious bays will wreck the seabed, damage wildlife and could be illegal, environmental groups have warned.

Scottish ministers have agreed to allow fishing boats to dredge almost a third of Luce Bay on the far southwestern tip of Galloway for four months every year. The bay is legally protected as a conservation area because of its endangered purple-pink maerl beds, brittlestars and hundreds of other marine species.

A coalition of seven major conservation groups have joined with an angling network to protest to the government’s Marine Scotland directorate over a decision to permit scallop dredging in the Luce Bay and Sands Special Area of Conservation (SAC) on the edge of the Solway Firth.

In a joint letter, they expressed concern that the government’s approach will result in the natural features special to the bay being harmed. “Fisheries management measures for Luce Bay will expose areas of seabed to potential damage by scallop dredging at certain times of year,” they wrote.

They questioned whether the government’s scientific evidence was sufficient to ensure that no damage would occur. There was evidence of an underwater reef – a potentially rich habitat for marine wildlife - to the west of the bay that could be at risk, they said.

Cairngorm music festival must protect birds to win licence

from Sunday Herald, 06 March 2016

An electronic music festival planned for next weekend in the middle of an ancient Caledonian pine forest in the Cairngorms has still to be granted a licence because of concerns it could harm rare birds.

Over 500 tickets for ‘Groove Cairngorm’ at Badaguish in Glenmore forest at the foot of the Cairngorm ski slope have already been sold. But Highland Council is still considering how to protect the forest’s capercaillie, one of Scotland’s most endangered species, from the traffic, noise and crowds.

Two government bodies – Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), which is meant to protect wildlife, and the Forestry Commission, which manages the woodland – are worried that the event could prevent the birds breeding unless major measures are taken to protect them.

SNH has advised the council that the noise should be kept below 75 decibels, and that sound barriers will be required around the concert site. It also wants to prevent concert-goers from leaving the site, and lights from being shone into the woods.

The Forestry Commission said it was concerned about the event taking place near places where capercaillie perform their distinctive mating dances, known as leks.

Environmental groups have warned that disturbing capercaillie would be illegal, with one suggesting the event should be refused a licence. The festival’s organisers, however, insist that the event will be able to go ahead without the birds being harmed.