Gamekeeper leader's petition asks Holyrood to back predator control
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Thousands of rural stakeholders are expected to sign a petition by the leader of Scotland’s gamekeepers asking that MSPs officially acknowledge predator control as an act of conservation.
Alex Hogg, MBE, Chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, says he has launched the petition in response to the nature emergency and extinction threats to ground-nesting birds.
Nearly 900 people signed within 24 hours.
Mr Hogg feels skilled legal control of abundant generalist predators such as foxes, corvids and stoats has an important role to play in saving ground-nesting bird species such as curlew which are now globally at risk.
The gamekeeper’s leader says Scotland’s countryside has lost ‘armies’ of working conservationists in just a few decades, with fewer gamekeepers employed and predator management no longer being carried out in public forests.
While farmers still manage local fox populations,the SGA has said regulations have become increasingly burdensome with many members no longer applying to police for firearms certification.
They say in 25 years, Scotland has lost 60 per cent of its curlew and lapwing populations and 36 per cent of its oystercatchers.
Ptarmigan and Dunlin were recently added to conservation’s red list and Capercaillie are on the brink of a second extinction, with around 500 individual birds left.
Mr Hogg said the petition is not about replaying arguments about extent of control or whether the benefits occur as a spin-off to other activity but rather about the net impacts for ground-nesting birds.
By accepting the concept that legal predator control is a legitimate conservation tool, he believes parliament can help galvanise all land managers behind the national effort for nature.
Mr Hogg said: “Parliamentarians hear a lot of campaigns opposed to certain countryside activities, like aspects of shooting or farming but this should not make us lose sight of the benefits of skilled legal predator control, of itself, as an act which can have a positive impact on conservation and biodiversity.
“This is doubly significant in a nature emergency where we are at grave risk of losing keystone species.
"Everyone needs to play for Team Scotland now and the parliament can send out that signal by supporting this petition’s aim."
He added: “Forever arguments about who is carrying out the predator control whether it be the NGO worker, the farmer or the gamekeeper, is no longer relevant when the emergency is on.
“That stoat managed in Orkney, to protect native wildlife, has the same diet on the mainland, no matter who it is that is setting the trap.
“Basically, some ground-nesting species are now at such a low ebb.
"They need help to produce enough young to survive, if populations are to remain viable.”
Mr Hogg, who has worked the land for over four decades, said the petition is in direct response to changes he has seen in land management and rural policy.
“We now have nearly 20 per cent forest cover, predominantly conifers," he said. "These habitats hugely benefit generalist predators whilst shrinking core habitats of some upland birds.
“Forest rangers used to manage foxes and crows as part of their work. This no longer happens.
"Similarly, almost every farmer in every village used to manage foxes and crows. Nowadays, a great many will not have the required firearms certification but some still, thankfully, do, and play a huge part.
“In a relatively short space of time, we have lost an army of skilled wildlife managers. I have seen this as a forester and gamekeeper and I find the silence in some areas deafening and sad.
“The Parliament has a chance to prove that Scotland values its skilled land and wildlife managers and the important work they do.”
Mr Hogg also expressed concern that further restrictions on traps and snares in the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill could reduce predator control effort in Scotland further.
