Sporting estates hoping for record year
THE four-month grouse shooting season got under way on the "Glorious Twelfth" and sporting estates in the Borders 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.
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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Weather for Duns
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 5 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North east
