Ministers are being urged to bring in a full ban on snares and end the mass killing of wild animals in the Scottish countryside.
The call comes as MSPs are due to examine details of a Scottish Government bill to licence grouse moors after it passed its first parliamentary stage last Thursday.
The Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill is designed to address raptor persecution and ensure that the management of grouse moors and related activities are undertaken in an environmentally sustainable and welfare conscious manner.
READ MORE: Alison Johnstone: Why foxes and hares need more protection
It aims to do so by implementing the recommendations of an independent review of grouse moor management headed by Professor Alan Werrity which was published in December 2019.
The Bill introduces measures to:
• Ban the use and purchase of glue traps;
• Introduce licensing and training requirements for certain types of wildlife traps;
• Introduce a licensing regime for land used for the shooting of red grouse;
• Regulate muirburn - the practice of burning heather on moorland to create habitat for grouse - and include a statutory ban for burning on peatland.
Country estates are concerned a licensing scheme could damage their businesses and the wider rural economy. Rural businesses say the game and country sports sector is worth more than £350 million per year to the Scottish economy and more than 11,000 full-time jobs are supported by sporting shooting, often in rural areas where alternative sources of employment are scarce.
READ MORE: Grouse shooting Scotland: Rural businesses unite to slam licence plans
Animal welfare campaigners fear the bill could be weakened.
Robbie Marsland, Director of the League Against Cruel Sports, spoke out as a new report commissioned by his organisation estimated as many as 260,000 animals are killed each year in Scotland as part of legal “predator control” measures.
They included species targeted as predators such as foxes, weasels, stoats and rabbits but also "non-target” species including pine martens, hedgehogs, badgers, deer, and hares.
The report Killing to Kill said there had been reports of endangered and protected animals, such as the capercaillie and raptors being killed.
"Poisons and traps of various kinds are readily available for purchase in shops and on the internet. Trapping, including snares, and poisoning are inherently inhumane and cannot in almost all cases be divorced from prolonged suffering. All current methods of “predator control” either cause suffering, or prolong suffering, or make animals liable to suffering. There is no moral alternative to making all these practices illegal," the report said.
READ MORE: Government publishes new grouse moor licensing legislation
Mr Marsland hoped the legislation would would be strengthened as it goes through the parliamentary process to give wild animals greater protection.
"The bill has the potential to drastically change the way in which large areas of Scotland are managed, making it the most significant intervention in wildlife and environmental management for generations.
"It is abundantly clear from our report Killing to Kill that these interventions are long overdue. Predator control in particular is uncontrollable and the case against it is overwhelming. What passes for wildlife management in this country is woefully unregulated and basically just a free-for-all," he said.
READ MORE: Majority of Scots against grouse moor land management
"When the bill was first published we urged the government to be bold with this legislation, but sadly over the past months we have seen determined attempts to water it down. At stage two we hope to see amendments which would strengthen the bill allowing Scotland to lead the way in pioneering legislation that offers protection to wild animals which is currently only afforded to domestic and farmed animals.
"More specifically, we hope to see a complete ban on snares, an end to the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals and the burning of huge swathes of land for such a frivolous reason as increasing the number of grouse to shoot for 'sport'.
"We are over the first hurdle with the Parliament agreeing in principle to the Bill, now the hard work begins to ensure it is as stringent as possible, and lives up to being the significant intervention we were promised."
The bill passed its first stage by 82 votes to 32 on Thursday with no abstentions.
Speaking in the debate on Thursday environment minister Gillian Martin said the new licensing scheme would target wrongdoers who give grouse moors "a bad name".
She said the issue of raptor persecution "has not gone away" since the Werritty review and referred to the disappearance of Merrick, a satellite-tagged golden eagle which vanished in the Scottish Borders last Monday.
Professor Werritty had said a licensing scheme should be introduced if there is no "marked improvement" in the ecological sustainability of grouse moor management within five years.
Ms Martin said: "Grouse moors can be successfully managed in a way that doesn't negatively impact on the environment or biodiversity, and a great many of them are acting responsibly.
"But we need to end the blight of raptor persecution that takes place on the few estates that give the sector a bad name."
She said the licensing scheme aimed to change the culture of grouse moor management while allowing law-abiding moors to continue.
However, the Conservatives' Rachael Hamilton said the bill would have a serious impact on the rural economy.
She said: "We want to reiterate that we condemn the persecution of raptors, but (the bill) goes way beyond that objective."
During the debate Ms Martin announced her intention to bring forward a Stage two amendment to introduce a new specific offence to penalise those who wreck and interfere with legal predator control traps in the countryside. The quest for this measure has been a long-running campaign of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA).
Speaking on Thursday, SGA Chairman Alex Hogg, MBE, said: “Our members have suffered a long time because of the lack of a robust and clear offence to tackle criminal wrecking and interference with legal predator control traps.
“Today’s announcement from minister Gillian Martin during the stage One debate of the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill that she intends to bring forward a specific offence at Stage Two to cover this is, therefore, warmly welcomed by everyone connected with the SGA."
He added: “At the SGA we will continue to advocate the benefits of professional, legal trapping for conservation and economic purposes in Scotland. This announcement assists that process by offering clarity to everyone on what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to the operation of legal and approved predator control tools in our countryside.”
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