This week, Wildlife Matters Investigates Grouse Moor Conservation and asks, Is it for Real?
According to grouse moor managers and gamekeepers, responsible and traditional management of moorlands provides significant conservation advantages. They firmly believe that if gamekeepers stop controlling generalist predators, lapwing and golden plover populations could decline by 81%, and curlew populations could drop by 47% within a decade.
What has changed for this sudden increase in conservation efforts from Gamekeepers and Grouse moor managers? I am curious if there are any ulterior motives behind this newfound concern for certain wildlife species.
Let’s start with the Red Grouse, a species that Moor owners are passionate about safeguarding. This bird is a subspecies of the Willow Ptarmigan, known for its low breeding density of 0.1 to 10 pairs per km2, found in northern Europe, northern Eurasia, and North America. But thanks to intensive habitat management, predator control, and regular medication on Grouse Moors in the UK, the Red Grouse population after breeding has skyrocketed to around 150 to 500 birds per km2.
Grouse Moor Management
Red Grouse depend on moorland habitats comprising of blanket bog and heath beyond the limits of enclosed agriculture (Watson & Moss, 2008). These habitats and the breeding bird populations they support in the UK are of international conservation importance (Thompson et al., 1995), with large areas protected under national and international law. Moorlands also provide regulatory and cultural ecosystem services. That means the Estate owners are being subsidised by the UK taxpayer to maintain these vitally important habitats and eco-systems. Critically, these Moors provide 70% of drinking water in Britain, and support peatlands in England and Scotland that are the largest carbon store in the UK, amounting to almost 1800 Mt (Bonn et al., 2009, Chapman et al., 2009 & Alonso et al., 2012).
Burning and Vegetation control
Estate Managers take a responsible and meticulous approach to land management, ensuring the survival of Red Grouse by catering to their specific needs. They understand that young and nourishing Heather shoot tips (Calluna vulgaris) are crucial to the grouse, while older and deeper heather provide them with important nesting and protection. To fulfil these vital requirements, vegetation is burned on a rotational basis, preserving a variety of heather and dwarf shrub ages, which proves to be highly advantageous for the grouse. Additionally, they effectively manage grazing densities of sheep and deer and employ herbicides to control Bracken (Pteridium aquiline) and maintain heather dominance, as Grant et al. (2012) advised.
Burning harms certain bird species, such as the Merlin, Hen Harrier, and Short-eared Owl, as it reduces their nesting cover. Moreover, heather cover dominance is unfavourable for species typically found in grassy moorlands, like the Skylark and Meadow Pipit. This also impedes the growth and development of scrub and woodland, vital for preserving biodiversity. Studies conducted by Tharme et al. (2001), Pearce-Higgins & Grant (2006), and Watson & Moss (2008) have all emphasised these ecological consequences of burning.
Moors for Grouse management has intensified, resulting in shorter burning rotations and more annual burns. Even protected areas, despite government regulations (Scottish Government, 2011; see Appendix S1), routinely burn moorlands that sit atop deep peat soils, which often support blanket bog and wet heath (Yallop et al., 2006; Douglas et al., 2015). This repeated burning of blanket bog is inconsistent with international responsibilities to maintain and restore it to favourable conservation status.
As per the Committee on Climate Change findings in 2015, a mere 14% of upland peatland habitats in the UK are considered to be in good condition. This is primarily due to the burning of blanket bog and wet heath, which can lead to the long-term loss of bog-forming Sphagnum mosses, ultimately resulting in the degradation or loss of peat formation and carbon sink conditions. As highlighted by Garnett et al. (2000) and Ward et al. (2007), this situation often paves the way for the growth of Heather, as also pointed out by Glaves et al. (2013).
Burning also impacts the water supply with associated economic consequences. It causes DOC (dissolved organic carbon) and water discolouration. Water companies have to clean the water, and their customers bear the cost (that’s you and me, as well as Mr and Mrs Householder (Grayson et al., 2012).
Economic Benefit
The other central claim of the Moor owners is the economic benefits they bring to rural areas. A point of view that has been persuasive to the government that has showered the upland estates with millions of pounds of public funding
UK taxpayers are happy to fund projects that benefit nature and help preserve the diverse ecosystem that sustains plant and animal life. This ecosystem is essential in safeguarding our water supply, protecting against floods, and promoting local and global conservation efforts.
If the truth were known, it is highly improbable that they would continue to support grouse estates. It is disheartening to witness the transformation of a once-diverse habitat into a location that caters solely to one species. The intensive management of grouse moors has a plethora of harmful consequences, including amplified greenhouse gas emissions, as highlighted by the Committee on Climate Change, increased water treatment costs passed onto customers, heightened risk of floods due to water retention in the hills, and diminished aquatic biodiversity, leading to downstream impacts on fishermen.
Red Grouse Shooting
The Red Grouse are bred to be driven or flushed over static lines of shooters for sport, fun and profit. The Red Grouse season, which runs from 12th August until 10th December annually, is considered the prestigious event in the shooting calendar. Grouse are driven by lines of ‘beaters’ to fly over a row of shooters who expect to kill more grouse in a day (on average 30 to 40 per gun) than on a ‘walked-up’ shoot, where hunters walk in line using dogs to “flush” grouse to ‘the guns’. Most of these shootings take place on private land, and hefty fees are expected.
A ‘Shooting area’ of approximately 850,000 hectares (Douglas et al., 2015) and a dramatic increase in the Red Grouse population, in fact, a 90% increase in England and a 74% increase in Scotland. Of course, this has resulted in increased disease. Red Grouse are vulnerable to strongylosis, a disease caused by the gastrointestinal nematode Trichostrongylustenuis, which depresses body condition, may cause death and can reduce brood sizes and population densities (Redpath et al., 2006). Red Grouse are also susceptible to louping ill, a virus causing encephalomyelitis in sheep carried by wild mammals such as hares and deer; it is transmitted by the tick (Ixodes ricinus (Watson & Moss, 2008).
After two months of intensive shooting on the grouse moors, with each gun killing 30 to 40 grouse a day, there are a lot of dead birds – what happens to them? The shooters can’t eat them all. Some are sold to Butchers or the local community, and some are donated to food banks, but many are not safe to eat, as they are full of lead shots. One volunteer told me they asked not to receive them any longer as they needed to be prepared, and many locals no longer wanted to eat them. The reality is that most of them end up in stink pits, large holes dug in the ground and covered at the end of the day. There will be very many stink pits dug on every estate each shooting season.
In his excellent book Inglorious, Mark Avery says,” Grouse shooting is simply a hobby, a pastime. If train spotting wrecked the ecology of where it occurred, we’d ban it. Grouse shooting requires densities of Red Grouse way above natural levels produced by intense predator control, heather-burning and moorland drainage. This unsustainable land management to benefit Red Grouse – which are then shot for fun – short-changes the rest of us.”
Let’s not forget that to protect the Red Grouse, Gamekeepers spend the majority of their time engaged in predator control – or, more honestly, poisoning, trapping and shooting native wildlife.
Predator Control
Gamekeepers openly kill predators of grouse to maximise the shootable surplus. Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes), Stoats (Mustela erminea), Weasels (Mustela nivalis), and various corvid species are shot and trapped. However, illegal trapping, shooting, snaring, and poisoning of Raptors—which are protected birds—and Badgers, which are protected mammals—also takes place.
Gamekeepers routinely shoot mountain hares and red deer to reduce the infection risk from louping ill. However, there is no evidence that culling Mountain Hares and Red Deer reduces the risk to Red Grouse, as both the ticks and louping ill viruses persist even when tick hosts occur at very low densities (Gilbert et al., 2001; Harrison et al., 2010). To quote the science, the scientific case for culling Mountain Hares is weak (Werritty et al., 2015).
I’ve left the killing of Raptors or Birds of prey until last. We will return to this topic in more depth in the future, but I feel it must be made clear that all Raptor species are protected by law. The law also protects their eggs, nests, and chicks.
Raptors
The illegal killing of Raptors, especially Hen Harriers, has raised awareness of the issues of grouse hunting. Wildlife Matters is supporting Dr Mark Avery, Chris Packham, and Ruth Tingay in the excellent work they are doing with their new organisation, Wild Justice.
The illegal use of poisons to kill predators is a regular practice for Gamekeepers who actively manage moors for grouse shooting (Whitfield et al., 2003). Hen Harriers are almost absent from driven grouse moors across the UK. Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) and Red Kites (Milvus milvus) have been illegally killed in Scotland, predominantly in areas managed for grouse shooting (Whitfield et al., 2006 & 2007; Smart et al., 2010).
The breeding performance of Peregrines is lower on grouse moors than any other habitats in the UK, with 66% of pairs failing to produce any young, even though clutch and brood sizes of successful nests do not differ between grouse moors and other habitats (Amar et al., 2012). How mysterious!
I think Dr Mark Avery sums things up well when he says,” Grouse shooting is all about killing wildlife. The point is to kill lots of Red Grouse for fun, and this depends on the killing of huge numbers of foxes, stoats, weasels, crows, etc. Too often, protected species are killed, too, because they eat Red Grouse. 2600 pairs of Hen Harriers should nest in the UK, but there are only circa 600 because of illegal persecution by grouse shooting interests.”
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Further Reading
Grouse Moors – UK Hill Walking
Britain’s National Parks dominated by Grouse Moors The Guardian