Wildlife crime, in particular raptor persecution, on Scotland's grouse moors and private estates is astronomical in both its frequency and barbarity. For too long a small number of privileged custodians have used driven grouse shooting to fund the large swathes of Scottish land in their possession. Not only do they mismanage the land to the detriment of both the environment and biodiversity, the people under their employment repeatedly break the law in order to maximise profit from the shooting of grouse and other game birds.

The Scottish Government has never done a thing of significance about this.

Not only will they not take action, they won't even acknowledge the issue unless publicly forced to. It is tokenism, and they are treating the people of Scotland and wildlife advocates the world wide with contempt.

I wrote to the leaders of the Scottish political parties weeks ago, and in the time since there have been at least three further incidences of raptors going missing or being killed by illegal snares in Scotland. In my email I asked them why it is that they keep allowing grouse estates to get away with a multitude of wildlife crime. I knew the answer already - money and the influence of those few wealthy landowners who own these estates. The Scottish Government knows full well who the owner(s) of these estates are, and the gamekeepers implicated will no doubt be repeat offenders.

No matter where they are, grouse moors are an ugly stain on the countryside. The land is destroyed, to the detriment of all other wildlife; with birds hand-reared not to fear people so people with a lot of money and little morals can shoot them. It is wholly unnecessary and unimaginably cruel.

I do not know how many people have to sign petitions, organise rallies and protests, donate money to organisations which keep tagging birds of prey and finding all of their research and resources lost to illegal snares.

Honestly, do the public have to take matters into their own hands in order to fight wildlife crime?

This time on a public platform I ask the Scottish party leaders again - why do any of you deserve our votes when you repeatedly fail to take action on issues we put you in office to tackle? All of you are in positions of power to actually change the narrative of wildlife crime on Scottish grouse moors - are any of you principled enough to take decisive action on this once and for all?