Call for voluntary restraint on large scale mountain hare culls

6 January 2015

Concerns over the unsustainability of the mass culling of mountain hares on grouse moors in recent years has led to a call for land managers to exercise ‘voluntary restraint’. SNH has also initiated further studies to trial several methods of assessing mountain hare population densities, in order to evaluate the conservation impact of the culls. Some have criticised this approach, arguing that SNH could do a lot more to protect this keystone species. A petition has been launched calling for SNH to confer immediate, full protected status on the mountain hare and formally end the widespread culls.