Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill

Closed 5 May 2023

Opened 31 Mar 2023

Contact

Rural and Islands Committee

rural.committee@parliament.scot

Overview

The Rural Affairs and Islands Committee is looking at the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill and wants to hear your views.

What is the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Bill

The Bill would change the law in a number of ways—

  • Ban the use and purchase of glue traps
  • Introduce a licensing system for the use of certain wildlife traps
  • Introduce a licensing system for land on which certain birds (currently only proposed to include red grouse) may be killed or taken
  • Extend the investigatory powers of Scottish SPCA inspectors under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006
  • Extend the existing muirburn licensing system to require a licence all year round, with different licence conditions depending on whether this is carried out in muirburn season (1 October to 15 April), outwith muirburn season or on peatland

What does the Committee want to know?

Glue traps

Q1. Do you agree with the proposed ban on the use and purchase of glue traps (sections 1-3)?

Wildlife traps

Q2. Do you agree there is a need for additional regulation of the use of certain wildlife traps? 

Q3. Do you agree with the proposed licensing system for the use of certain wildlife traps (sections 4-5)? 

Licensing scheme for land used to shoot red grouse

Q4. Do you agree there is a need for additional regulation of land to be used to shoot red grouse? 

Q5. Do you agree with the proposed licensing system for land to be used to shoot red grouse (sections 6-7)?

Additional powers to investigate wildlife crime

Q6. Do you agree with the proposal to give the Scottish SPCA additional powers to investigate wildlife crime (section 8)? 

Licensing scheme for muirburn

Q7. Do you agree there is a need for additional regulation for muirburn? 

Q8. Do you agree with the proposed licensing system for muirburn (sections 9-19)?  

The call for views closed on 5 May 2023.

What happens next

The Committee received 5,705 submissions in total, 109 from organisations and 5,596 from individuals.

Due to the significant number of individual responses, the Committee has produced two documents—

Read the summary of responses, produced by SPICe and the Participation and Communities Team (PACT) (4MB, pdf)

Read all the responses submitted by organisations (2MB, pdf)

To find out more about the Committee's scrutiny of the Bill please visit our website.

Interests

  • RAI