Scottish government urged to regulate grouse moors after golden eagles vanish

Call to outlaw intensive grouse shooting after disappearance of two juvenile eagles

Severin Carrell Scotland editor

Mon 1 Jul 2019 13.33 BST Last modified on Mon 1 Jul 2019 20.25 BST

Conservationists have urged the Scottish government to regulate grouse moors after two golden eagles disappeared within hours of each other on a shooting estate in Perthshire.

The two juvenile eagles were fitted with satellite tags which abruptly stopped sending out signals on 18 April – the latest of a spate of cases where birds of prey have disappeared or been found dead in the same area of Perthshire, known as Strathbraan, near Dunkeld.

One of the eagles was tagged last year by Andy Wightman, a Scottish Green party MSP who is the golden eagle “species champion” in Scotland, as part of a bird of prey conservation project led by the broadcaster Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay, who blogs for Raptor Persecution UK.

Wightman had named the bird Adam after the revered Scottish mountain ecologist Adam Watson, who died in January this year.

Wightman, an expert on land reform, said the eagle’s disappearance had left him distraught and he had written to Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, asking her to outlaw intensive grouse shooting.

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