I READ with interest your article on grouse shooting (“Call for ban on driven grouse shooting as ‘Glorious Twelfth’ looms”, The Herald, August 7). I would agree with Mark Avery on the catastrophic effect that the present system of land management on grouse moors has had on biodiversity of species in these areas . Many of the practices of killing not only raptors but foxes, weasel, stoat, hares, crows and other species that are perceived by landowners and their estate managers to have a negative impact on grouse numbers , date back to Victorian times when the thirst for killing wild animals as part of their social calendar knew no bounds.

Not only have the Highlands been cleared of people and rural communities by often-absentee landlords over the past centuries , but the native wildlife has also to a large extent been annihilated by these same landowners to make a playground for the rich.

Whilst owners of these often-vast “sporting” estates are firmly embedded in the corridors of power and use organisations such as Countryside Alliance and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association to push their perverse view of wildlife , those who support an ecologically sustainable and bio-diverse use of the land put their trust in organisations such as Scottish Wildlife Trust and RSPB . I am therefore astounded and disgusted (as an RSPB member myself ) that, as stated in your article, the RSPB has remained “officially neutral” on this issue. Surely as one of the biggest wildlife charities in Britain, it should be one of its primary aims to protect wildlife and promote biodiversity, not just within their own reserves, but to speak out publicly against the practices of these estates wherever they are to be found?

Unless we shine a light on the persecution of wildlife on grouse moors ,this archaic and cruel system of land management will persist ad infinitum

Kate Dally,

Ross House, Pittendreich, Kinross.

IT has been revealing that not only Africans, Americans and Europeans have been disgusted and shocked by the needless killing of Cecil the Lion, brought about by the supporters and executioners of such unfathomable blood sports. Most people worldwide clearly fail to understand what so-called pleasure is derived from the gratuitous slaughter of such magnificent creatures, be they lion or leopard. Nearer home grouse or geese are treated in the same way here. While punishment of the “big game hunters” concerned is to be applauded, perhaps a similar stance here should be adopted for our native species.

Grouse are indigenous moorland birds. They do not exist as the “quarry” of the rich, or as an essential food supply, but are beautifully adapted denizens of the heather moors and if artificially increasing their numbers is simply to satisfy the blood-sport economy’s need for cash, and perverse pleasure, then it is time to bring this odious “industry” to an end. Grouse will thereafter “manage” themselves very well, thank you, as they did before the gun was invented. And our birds of prey will increase to former levels.

Most shooting estates are owned – and often managed – by non-Scots; people who have no love of Scottish wildlife and the countryside and have few cultural links, other than financial, with bank accounts all held south of the border, to where their profits accrue. Their absence from the Scottish countryside would not be missed. Claims of what they bring financially to the local rural economy are a gross exaggeration.

Indeed, let us have a referendum on whether Scotland 2015 still wants to retain the Germanic pastimes of Prince Albert and his followers that should have been consigned to oblivion decades ago.

Bernard Zonfrillo,

28 Brodie Road, Glasgow.

THE Agenda contribution from Mimi Bekhechi of Peta was full of inaccurate, misleading and in several instance downright wrong "facts" (“There is nothing glorious about this bloody day of murder on the moors”, The Herald, August 10).

It would appear that it is acceptable to insult those who take part in a totally legal sport which is a very valuable contributor to rural communities and also a major factor in the conservation of many moorland species. She, hopefully through ignorance, perpetuates the falsehood that the raptors poisoned on the Black Isle were killed by a gamekeeper whereas the police investigation pointed to them being accidentally poisoned by a group feeding the raptors.

Her comments on muirburn, the burning of small areas of heather so that new growth will flourish, displays that she has no knowledge or experience of moorland or its preservation. Equally her comments about holders of shotgun licences as "dangerous lunatics" places a large question mark against her.

This article dredged the depths of prejudice, ignorance, inaccuracy and insult. It said more about the contributor than it diminishes grouse shooting.

David Stubley,

22 Templeton Crescent, Prestwick.