Questions about the law concerning deer hunting at night

Hi!

I was wondering if anybody could help me with some questions about the Scottish law concerning hunting in the dark. What the rules are, the background and the justification for why you have them.

If you have some links to the legislation online?

I am i law student and a hunter from Norway. I´m writing my master thesis which is about the rules concerning night hunting in Norway. By Norwegian law hunting during night is not prohibited. Although lighting is not allowed. The hunters are simply abide to exercise human hunting where the animals do not have to experience unnecessary suffering.

But there has been several rulings by the Norwegian courts the last years where night hunters have been accused of inhuman hunting. The legislators have therefor been asked to review our laws and consider that we introduce the same kind of prohibition which for example Sweden and Denmark have.
 
Hi!

I was wondering if anybody could help me with some questions about the Scottish law concerning hunting in the dark. What the rules are, the background and the justification for why you have them.

If you have some links to the legislation online?

I am i law student and a hunter from Norway. I´m writing my master thesis which is about the rules concerning night hunting in Norway. By Norwegian law hunting during night is not prohibited. Although lighting is not allowed. The hunters are simply abide to exercise human hunting where the animals do not have to experience unnecessary suffering.

But there has been several rulings by the Norwegian courts the last years where night hunters have been accused of inhuman hunting. The legislators have therefor been asked to review our laws and consider that we introduce the same kind of prohibition which for example Sweden and Denmark have.

As one foreigner to another.

No hunting is allowed between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise but there are 2 important exceptions:

1 My local police force told me that to alliviate animal suffering you can kill a wounded animal in these hours but you must be able to satisfy the Courts that you did it to stop it suffering if the police take you to Court.

2 The appropriate authorities can give you permission on application to shoot deer at night. This is not a rare occurrance.
 
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2 The appropriate authorities can give you permission on application to shoot deer at night. This is not a rare occurrance.

Au contraire, it is VERY unusual for an individual to be granted permission to take deer outwith the prescribed daylight hours. As far as I know only a couple of night licences were granted last year, both of them for shooting park deer in Royal parks in London (Richmond and Bushey) where shooting during the day isn't possible due to the public having access.
 
Au contraire, it is VERY unusual for an individual to be granted permission to take deer outwith the prescribed daylight hours. As far as I know only a couple of night licences were granted last year, both of them for shooting park deer in Royal parks in London (Richmond and Bushey) where shooting during the day isn't possible due to the public having access.

I have been told of other places but had Scotland in mainly in mind. Scotland, as HunterGirl probably knows, has diffferent laws to the rest of the UK.
 
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I have a lot of friends who have been deer hunting in Scotland, and they have been there with Scottish hunters who have hunted during the night themselves. My friends were talking about being a stalker 1 and 2, and if you were a stalker 2 you could hunt at night (or something like that).

Does any of you know where I can find the law concerning hunting in Scotland?
 
Baron, Scotland is a part of the UK. Scotland has different laws to England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

Hunter, we have two deer stalking qualifications. DSC1 and DSC2. DSC1 is mainly a classroom course, with a multiple choice test at the end, and a fairly simple shooting test. DSC2 is a field based qualification, where you have to stalk, shoot, gralloch and retrieve two deer whilst being observed by someone qualified as an accredited witness. Neither of these qualifications allows you to shoot deer at night.

The Deer Commission Scotland best practice guide tells you everything you need to know about the law surrounding night shooting of deer in Scotland. You can find it here
 
Do you know the justification for the night hunting prohibition? Ie he risk of wounding the deer, that the darkness will make it hard to seek for the wounded deer. Or if the deer hunter feels that they should be able

We have several surveys concerning shooting during the day and night. And the chance of making a bad shot and wound the deer is four times as big during the day, than during the night.

On the other hand, it is the most experienced hunters who hunt during the night. They are the best marksmen.

A lot of the deer hunters in Norway argue that the deer population has increased so much that we have to hunt at the break of dawn or when it´s a full moon to shoot enough deer. That´s why I wanted to check the rules in Scotland, because I know that Scotland has a much bigger population of deer than in Norway. I haven´t been abroad to hunt, but I know that a lot of Norwegian hunters go to Scotland to hunt deer. I really don´t know anything about the deer or the hunting in England, Ireland or Wales. So I don´t know the difference in the deer population, or if they have different rules concerning night hunting.
 
MUST have trained dog present
MUST be minimum of 2 people present
IMO wounding rates will increase at night
 
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I think the night hunting restrictions date back to when poaching was considered to be a problem, and identifying who was taking deer legitimately and who was poaching was difficult. Most poaching took/takes place under the cover of darkness, so the easy way to go about it is to ban night hunting, then anyone taking deer at night is immediately guilty of an offence. Legitimate hunters could continue to hunt during the day, whereas the poachers couldn't due to the risk of being spotted.

That's my take on it anyway, I could be completely wrong.
 
I think the night hunting restrictions date back to when poaching was considered to be a problem, and identifying who was taking deer legitimately and who was poaching was difficult. Most poaching took/takes place under the cover of darkness, so the easy way to go about it is to ban night hunting, then anyone taking deer at night is immediately guilty of an offence. Legitimate hunters could continue to hunt during the day, whereas the poachers couldn't due to the risk of being spotted.

That's my take on it anyway, I could be completely wrong.

What about a keeper going about his business lamping foxes?
 
Sorry, lack of clarity there. The restriction on hunting deer at night is what I meant. There is no restriction on lamping foxes, rabbits etc.
 
I think the problem in Norway is the difference in daylight hours between the northern and southern regions of the country. In the north they have about 5 hours of daylight during the winter when they need to get their culls done whilst further south its similar to the Scottish highlands. My guess would be their laws are based on the northern region (which coincidently has the higher deer population) and it would be difficult to have different laws for different regions so a blanket approach has been taken.
 
Welcome to the site I had the pleasure of visiting Norway for the first time last year; I will try and give you a bit of information to help you. I am sure others will be along later to put anything I get wrong right.

The law to prevent shooting deer at night came into force under legislation brought in by our government in the 1960’s its primary concern was deer welfare, among other things it brought in minimum calibres of rifles to be used for deer. I assume therefore that is the reason we do not shoot an hour after dark or an hour before sun rise, is deer welfare, less wounding, easier to follow up quickly if a deer is wounded, easier to identify which sex and age the deer is before culling. Also it would help prevent poaching which in itself would prevent deer suffering.

We hunt other animals at night, rabbits and foxes without breaking any laws, but to hunt deer in Scotland at night you need a special license this is normally only issued for the purpose of crop protection, newly planted trees are classed as crops. Most deer shot at night are done so under high powered lights.

ATB

Tahr
 
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Thar, the DCS best practice states that they have to be lamped. It's illegal to use any kind of image intensifying or thermal imaging sight to take deer, so a lamp is the only option.
 
Au contraire, it is VERY unusual for an individual to be granted permission to take deer outwith the prescribed daylight hours. As far as I know only a couple of night licences were granted last year, both of them for shooting park deer in Royal parks in London (Richmond and Bushey) where shooting during the day isn't possible due to the public having access.

The OP was asking about Scotland, you are quite clearly thinking of England.

Baron, Scotland is a part of the UK. Scotland has different laws to England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

Hunter, we have two deer stalking qualifications. DSC1 and DSC2. DSC1 is mainly a classroom course, with a multiple choice test at the end, and a fairly simple shooting test. DSC2 is a field based qualification, where you have to stalk, shoot, gralloch and retrieve two deer whilst being observed by someone qualified as an accredited witness. Neither of these qualifications allows you to shoot deer at night.

The Deer Commission Scotland best practice guide tells you everything you need to know about the law surrounding night shooting of deer in Scotland. You can find it here

If you achieved your DSC2 with ICRs for two deer, then I've been had.

The DCS hasn't exisited for 18 months now.

Matt, I'm going to have to be direct, I don't think you know much about night shooting in Scotland.

By all means correct me if I'm wrong.
 
DL, my apologies, I'm getting my parts of the country mixed up. Forgive me for thinking that their might be some consistency between the laws in our country. Stupid assumption, especially with anything to do with shooting.

And yes, SNH have functionally taken over the DCS roll. Nevertheless the "best practice" guidance is still the same, just with a different logo at the top.

It is still illegal to use image intensifying or thermal imaging scopes though isn't it?
 
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