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The case for grouse moor management as an essential part of sustaining Scotland’s uplands was re-stated at a “Gift of Grouse” reception yesterday at the Scottish Parliament, highlighting the work of grouse moor estates in the Angus Glens and Perthshire.

Liz Truss MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, paid tribute to the scientific research of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust and its contribution to developing practical solutions to reversing the decline of our native wildlife.

Populations of reintroduced and escaped Eurasian beaver currently exist in England and Scotland and concerns have been raised that beavers, and more specifically the dams that they construct, may negatively impact populations of migratory fish, particularly salmon and trout, due to impeding their movements and fragmenting important habitat. 

Nigel Oakey, farmer from Grange Farm, Godington, Nr Bicester, Oxfordshire has won the prestigious Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) Grey Partridge Cotswolds Trophy for his efforts in fighting the decline of this iconic game bird - the Grey partridge.

A new one-day course was launched In August 2015 allowing gamekeepers to continue controlling rats using professional use rodenticides, after a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) deadline of the 1st July 2016 was introduced.

A new study by the GWCT, with support from Natural England, has identified that the use of pesticides on cereal fields could be having a greater impact than previously thought and that this impact may increase in the face of climate change. The study, using over 40 years of data collected on farmland on the Sussex Downs, considers the effect on arable insects and spiders of factors including changes in extreme weather events and pesticide use.

GWCT Director Scotland Dr Adam Smith welcomed the launch of a Moorland Review undertaken by a sub-group of SNH’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

The once-common wild grey partridge has been in steep decline over the past four decades. Although it is one of the UK’s most iconic farmland bird species, grey partridge numbers have plummeted by more than 80% and, tragically, because of habitat loss and a reduction in essential chick food insects, they have become locally extinct in many areas of the country.

The GWCT and the Scottish Gamekeepers Association will be jointly staging two Rat Control for Gamekeepers courses in September to allow their members to become fully qualified to continue using professional rodenticides.

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is appealing to school pupils across the Perth and Kinross region to get busy with their paintbrushes and pencils – or indeed any other medium – and enter the annual GWCT schools art competition.