Tourism agency has granted £36,675 to an organisation offering shooting holidays
An organisation which promotes mountain hare shooting holidays has received more than £30,000 from Scotland’s national tourism agency, a charity has revealed.
A report for OneKind named 25 companies providing hare shooting in Scotland, eight of which are promoted by the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group (SCSTG).
The SCSTG website lists government agencies VisitScotland and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) as partner organisations. OneKind said SCSTG has received grants worth £36,675 from VisitScotland in the last five years.
One company, Mirani Hunting, used an image of hunters standing by the carcasses of dozens of hares to promote its services on VisitScotland.org.
It’s simply not appropriate for government agencies to actively promote the large-scale recreational killing of native wildlife
Another, Viscount Sporting, offered a day’s shooting of 80-100 hares for groups of nine for £4,200.
Both webpages have been removed following enquiries relating to OneKind’s report.
Mountain hare shooting is one of many country sports offered by Scottish game estates, and grouse moor managers also organise culls of the animals in an effort to protect red grouse for sport shooting.
An estimate from an SNH study suggests that 25,000 mountain hares were killed in 2006/7. This is thought to be between 5-14% of the total population. Approximately 40% of those killed were shot for sport shooting, and 50% as part of organised culls.
OneKind is now calling on the Scottish Government to take urgent action and introduce a moratorium on large-scale hunts and culls before the season, which begins on 1 August, gets into full swing.
Director Harry Huyton said: “Mountain hares are an iconic species in Scotland that should be protected. Our report shows that instead they are persecuted in enormous numbers for entertainment. This killing is unregulated, and there are no guarantees that it is not further driving the decline of these species or causing unacceptable suffering.
“I hope that Visit Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage share our surprise and displeasure with what we have revealed in our report.
“It’s simply not appropriate for government agencies to actively promote the large-scale recreational killing of native wildlife, and I am writing to both agencies today to ask them to remove their endorsement of the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group and businesses that offer these services.”
