A PETITION has been raised to the Scottish Parliament calling for the law to be changed to make the killing of predators such as foxes and crows legal if it is done "as an act of conservation". 

The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) has proposed the measure in a petition submitted to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee.

It calls on MSPs to urge the Scottish Government to “officially recognise legal control of abundant generalist predators as an act of conservation to help ground-nesting birds in Scotland.”

The petition states: “Reducing populations of abundant generalists can benefit many rarer and fragile prey species from waders and merlins to common scoters.

“Just as the Parliament recognises habitat restoration as an act of conservation, so too, should it recognise control of generalist predators as similar.

“Both are important if we are to see ground nesting species survive in our landscape.”

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The SGA cite research from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust published in 2010, which found that the killing of foxes, crows, weasels and stoats improved the breeding success of some moorland birds including lapwing, curlew and red grouse.

Currently, foxes and crows have limited protection in Scotland with lethal control being legal under certain circumstances such as to protect agricultural crops.

But Robbie Marsland, the director of the League Against Cruel Sports Scotland, said the gamekeeper's petition was “laughable” and motivated only by wanting to shoot more grouse.

"This petition is no more than smoke and mirrors to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of animals to ensure higher numbers of game birds for sport shooting,” he said.

"The mass extermination of anything that threatens grouse numbers benefits all ground nesting birds but the real motivation for all this killing is hidden in plain sight. It's done on 'grouse moors' not 'ground nesting bird moors'.

"It is laughable that gamekeepers think anyone will be convinced about their concern for ground nesting birds when their real motivation is shooting more grouse.

"Scotland is leading the way in wildlife legislation with the recent Hunting With Dogs (Scotland) Act and the new Wildlife Management Bill, and this is clearly worrying the pro-shooting lobby who are no longer free to kill anything and everything that poses a risk to game birds and curtails their 'sport'."

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It comes as the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill makes its way through the Scottish Parliament.

The bill aims to end the illegal killing of protected birds of prey in Scotland by introducing a licencing scheme for land used to shoot red grouse.

The RSPB’s Birdcrime report from 2021 found there were 108 incidents of bird of prey persecution across the whole of the UK that year, with 71% linked to land managed for gamebird shooting.

Mark Avery, a former director of conservation for the RSPB, branded it a "clever move". 

He tweeted: "Well of course, in the same way that chucking money out of your car window while driving is a poverty alleviation measure - it depends where, how and when you do it.

"Clever move though."