AN INDEPENDENT probe is to be carried out into the legality and effect of moor management practices on mountain hares in Scotland, which conservationists say are close to extinction in parts of the country due to culls.
Details of the action has come after a coalition of ten environmental and outdoor organisations appealed to the Scottish Government to introduce a temporary ban on culls on grouse moors amid fears they have led to a mountain hare population decline.
Scots landowners have defended the killing of mountain hares to protect trees and prevent the spread of ticks in the face of a call to for a ban on culls on grouse moors.
Now the Scottish Government has confirmed that it is establishing an independent group to examine how it can ensure grouse moor management practices are "sustainable and complaint with the law".
And a Scottish Government source added: "We would expect mountain hare management to be part of the group’s work.”
Scottish Natural Heritage is also going to examine available evidence on the decline of the mountain hair.
And the Scottish Government has said that if this points to continuing high levels of culling of hares that could cause significant population declines, locally or nationally, it will "consider bringing forward further measures to protect them".
The coalition including RSPB Scotland, Scottish Wildlife Trust, the National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland called for a temporary ban on grouse moors until measures are put in place to ensure their numbers can remain at "acceptable, sustainable levels".
Details of the Scottish Government action came after the coaltion group said the Scottish Government has a "duty" to maintain mountain hare populations in a state of good health, otherwise it "may be in breach of its legally binding international obligations for this species".
Mountain hares are protected against unsustainable and indiscriminate killing by the European Union’s Habitats Directive.
However, the group say they are now routinely culled on a large scale on many grouse moors.
They said the practice has developed relatively recently, in the belief that it protects red grouse against the tick-borne louping ill virus, although there a lack of scientific evidence to support the theory. The group said this leads to an increase in the surplus of grouse to be shot at the end of the summer.
In 2014, the coalition warned the Scottish Government that the ‘voluntary restraint’ that was claimed to be in place was unlikely to protect these mammals from wide-scale culls on grouse moors, including in the Cairngorms National Park. The group say the culls are believed to be having a "serious negative effect" on hare numbers and have led to severe population declines and potentially even local extinctions.
But the Scottish Land and Estates (SLE), which represents landowners declared that the culls were necessary and comparable to organisations such as RSPB and SWT culling deer on land owned by the charities. They say that on occasion, it is necessary to cull some mountain hares to "limit the spread of ticks, for the protection of trees and to maintain fragile habitats".
A spokesman for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association said gamekeepers would welcome a study into all the elements "which may or may not be affecting mountain hare conservation in Scotland".
He added: “Once the awaited new guidance is finally published on the best methods for counting, we will be pushing the Scottish Government to look at all landholdings where hares are, or should be present. This will also have to include moorland managed by conservation charities and outdoor organisations.
"This will give the Scottish public a clear picture of where mountain hares are doing well and where they are not. We look forward to seeing the outcome of that.”
A Scottish Government source said: “The Scottish Government opposes large-scale culling of mountain hares while recognising that mountain hare numbers do sometimes require to be controlled, for example to protect newly-planted trees."
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