260k animals culled to save grouse estates

Researchers hit out over 'unnecessary suffering'

- DAN VEVERS

260,000 A STAGGERING animals are killed in Scotland every year to protect the grouse population for shooting on country estates, according to a study.

It said the practice of using traps to cull predators on moors causes "tremendous, unjustifiable suffering" to creatures and must be fully banned.

Animals targeted include foxes, weasels, stoats, rats and rabbits, as well as crows, magpies, jackdaws and jays.

However, other animals, such as hedgehogs, badgers, deer, hares and rare pine martens, often end up caught by the traps.

The academic study, by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, claimed even the most humane traps kill only 80 per cent of animals quickly, leaving the other 20 per cent to suffer "for days" with "appalling injuries".