League’s claims ‘staggering’

Conservationists say a new report commissioned by the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) is “questionable” and “entirely incorrect”. The report, Killing to Kill, published by the Ferrater Mora Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, focuses on the morality and ethics of predator management on Scottish grouse moors.

James Swyer, GWCT head of membership and marketing, said the report made many “bold claims”, including how the shooting industry has “failed to produce compelling data” to prove that predator control is necessary for conservation. 

Mr Swyer said: “This claim is possibly the most staggering of the lot. If the authors had consulted the peer-reviewed scientific literature, they would have found plenty of examples.” 

Upland keeper Lindsay Waddell told ST that “scientific shelves are groaning under the weight of published papers”, including one by the RSPB Northern Ireland on curlew. “It is work that has not all been done by organisations which have the slightest connection to shooting,” he pointed out. 

“This is nothing more than yet another very poor attempt to discredit countrywide work that is vital to the long-term survival of many of our declining species, not all being done for game shooting.”