The unlicensed mass culling of mountain hares has been outlawed, in a landmark amendment passed at Holyrood last night. The rural affairs minister Mairi Gougeon announced that the Scottish Government would back the amendment, which was proposed by Green parliamentary co-leader Alison Johnstone. Ms Johnstone said “I’m delighted the Scottish Government has finally given in to pressure to protect this iconic native species. This has come about because of the overwhelming public support for my amendment, for which I am very grateful.” In the debate, she paid tribute to the work of the legendary ecologist Adam Watson, who died last…

The killing of 87 beavers in Scotland – one fifth of the country’s population – proves there is an urgent need for humans to live more sympathetically alongside beavers across Britain, the Beaver Trust has said. The Trust said lethal control of the animals for agricultural reasons should only ever be a last resort, and that options such as relocating beavers to areas where they could benefit the landscape and be welcomed by local people should be considered. The scale of the officially sanctioned lethal control of beavers in Scotland in 2019 was revealed in a report released by Scottish…

A groundbreaking bid to help save Scotland’s almost-vanished mountaintop forests and their wildlife is being launched by Trees for Life, with the creation in the Highlands of what is thought will be the country’s largest planted area of rare high-altitude woodland. Centuries of overgrazing by sheep and deer have left most of Scotland stripped of the once-common, tough, waist-high ‘wee trees’ such as dwarf birch and downy willow – known as ‘montane’ species because they can grow near mountain summits, despite harsh conditions. In a major expansion of action to reverse the loss of these unique woodlands – home to…