Scottish grouse shooting licences

[Conor O'Gorman]

In Scotland, for this grouse shooting season onwards, land on which red grouse may be killed or taken must be licenced. This applies to both walked-up and driven grouse shooting. The licence holder will be the landowner or the person who formally holds the legal right to take or kill grouse. Not everyone who shoots a red grouse will require a licence but the land over which they are taken or shot must be covered by a valid licence.

NatureScot has stated that applications for grouse moor licences will provisionally open on 15 July through an online portal.

A requirement in the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 is that a licence holder 'must have regard' to the associated code of practice. Non-adherence to the requirements set out in the forthcoming code could result in a licensing sanction.

NatureScot will publish a finalised version of the statutory code of practice for grouse moor management on 12 July 2024. The latest and near-finalised draft can be viewed here:

Guidance - Draft Code of Practice for Grouse Moor Management

A ‘six steps for licensing’ guide has been prepared by NatureScot and can be viewed here:

Red grouse and licensing

The licence for land used to kill or take red grouse was introduced in the Wildlife Management & Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024.

www.nature.scot

 

[Utectok]

Mmm and so it goes on….

 

[Malxwal]

Envisaging that inbox manned by a single part time employee with known affiliations to animal rights....

 

[.25-06]

Envisaging that inbox manned by a single part time employee with known affiliations to animal rights....

Having met an ex employee of theirs just recently unhinged and/or unbalanced certainly featured in their personality with a point of view completely illogical. Somehow these people are then entrusted to make up guidance/suggestions for laws without any practical thought to it.

 

[Malxwal]

Like any other agency stemming from the mind of ScatGov, it'll be a condition of employment to be detached from logic, reality and evidence based truths.

 

[Nimrod1960]

Final details out on 12July, so a month to get application in and licence issued ! Lets call that 20 shirking from home days for a Nature Scot apparatchik. In reality more like 10 effective days allowing for processing time. 200 applications ? 20 per day processed ? timescale designed to fail and frustrate the 12th Aug.

 

[Boosh]

Bastards.

 

[Dunwaters]

Just suppose that no one applied for a license but shot their grouse anyway?

Do you really believe that the SNP is going to charge some of the most prominent, wealthy and influential landowners in the country, including HRH and drag them through the courts?
Just ignore them, they’ll soon toddle off.

 

[VSS]

Just suppose that no one applied for a license but shot their grouse anyway?

Do you really believe that the SNP is going to charge some of the most prominent, wealthy and influential landowners in the country, including HRH and drag them through the courts?
Just ignore them, they’ll soon toddle off.

If no-one applied, that might work. But the difficulty would be getting everyone to pull together. There'll always be a few who talk the talk but in reality are too afraid to rock the boat, so they'll apply for a licence. If some do, and some don't, the ones who don't are on much thinner ice with regard to making a stand.

 

[Malxwal]

Just suppose that no one applied for a license but shot their grouse anyway?

Do you really believe that the SNP is going to charge some of the most prominent, wealthy and influential landowners in the country, including HRH and drag them through the courts?
Just ignore them, they’ll soon toddle off.

An interesting proposition of civil disobedience

 

[Dunwaters]

If no-one applied, that might work. But the difficulty would be getting everyone to pull together. There'll always be a few who talk the talk but in reality are too afraid to rock the boat, so they'll apply for a licence. If some do, and some don't, the ones who don't are on much thinner ice with regard to making a stand.

If there was a recommendation from one or more of the national organisations to ignore it and some of the landowners were French you’d be off to a great start…
But you guys just don’t do protests, cause that would be illegal, do you?

 

[Dunwaters]

An interesting proposition of civil disobedience

It’s your democratic duty to protest against injustice and oppression.
Get on with it!
You actually have some of the most influential people in the 4 kingdoms potentially on your side.
You may not win, but the SNP will know that they were in a fight.

 

[Malxwal]

I fear incoming Liebore will have an appetite for enforcing the SNP introduced "death by regulation". Still, I doubt they'd send up the horse mounted Police and Army to batter dissent back into line, as was the way of the government in decades gone by.

 

[VSS]

If there was a recommendation from one or more of the national organisations to ignore it and some of the landowners were French you’d be off to a great start…
But you guys just don’t do protests, cause that would be illegal, do you?

None of the organisations would be bold enough to condone illegal activity.

Agreed, we're very poor when it comes to protesting in this country.

 

[Dunwaters]

None of the organisations would be bold enough to condone illegal activity.

Agreed, we're very poor when it comes to protesting in this country.

If you were to apply for an injunction challenging the license requirement, it would be placed on hold pending resolution of the dispute.
Your grounds for requesting an injunction are that the proposed license constitutes the confiscation of a private asset by the state without compensation.

 

[Mickeydredd]

None of the organisations would be bold enough to condone illegal activity.

Neither should they.

 

[Dan Newcombe]

Just suppose that no one applied for a license but shot their grouse anyway?

Do you really believe that the SNP is going to charge some of the most prominent, wealthy and influential landowners in the country, including HRH and drag them through the courts?
Just ignore them, they’ll soon toddle off.

Yes - I think that’s exactly what they would do, the whole thing is targeting those exact people

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

The red grouse shooting licence online application process is now live here:

Red Grouse - Start

 

[Mickeydredd]

Not sure if it impacts anyone on here but there is a specific rule in the legislation that provides an exemption from the legislation where the grouse is taken or killed by a bird of prey, therefore you do not need to register the land if grouse are only taken via falconry.

 

[Conor O'Gorman]

Thanks, I did not know that.