NatureScot, a government agency, has decided to greatly reduce the area of land affected by a new licensing regime for grouse moors after legal threats from shooting estates and land owners.
Campaign groups including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the League Against Cruel Sports (LACS) and Revive Scotland have said they are furious, and have called on the Scottish government to close the loophole urgently.
Anne McCall, the director of RSPB Scotland, said: "We believe that these changes completely undermine the primary intention of this legislation to tackle raptor persecution and will only give comfort to those who intend to keep killing our birds of prey.
"Leaders across the rest of the UK are looking to Scotland and this legislation to show them the art of the possible, with an example that they might soon follow. But the promise of a real deterrent to criminality on Scotland's grouse moors has been allowed to descend into a shambles."
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