Driven grouse shooting involves intensive land management with welfare implications for multiple species. The practice and its management methods are among the most contested wildlife issues in the UK.
Grouse moor management creates complex welfare outcomes for different species. The intensive predator control required for high grouse densities involves killing foxes, stoats, weasels, crows and corvids - legally, but at scale. Mountain hare culling at the documented rates causes acute welfare harm to tens of thousands of animals annually. Raptor persecution, when it occurs, kills individual birds of prey protected by law. The grouse themselves, farmed on wild moors, face disease management interventions and are ultimately killed in the shooting process. The welfare implications of different land management approaches for upland wildlife are difficult to assess in total, but the illegal persecution of raptors and the legal killing of mountain hares at population-significant levels are clear welfare concerns.