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Nothing glorious about grouse moor murders
PETER FROST joins broadcaster Chris Packham and Labour’s shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman MP on the grouse moors

JUST one week after the far from Glorious Twelfth, when every toff and every rich spiv wannabe toff dons his tweeds and picks up his shotgun and heads for moors, the real truth behind this bloody slaughter has been played out at Jedburgh law courts.

Not only are half a million red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotica) blasted out of the sky during the grouse season, but hundreds of thousands of other wild animals and birds are murdered by gamekeepers and others at the bidding of the grouse moor owners.

Alan Wilson, one of those gamekeepers, pleaded guilty last week at Jedburgh to nine offences involving using guns, illegal snares and the highly toxic and illegal pesticide carbofuran to kill all sorts of protected and unprotected wildlife.

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