Mountain hares are subject to large-scale culling on Scottish grouse moors, raising significant welfare and conservation concerns about a species that is declining across its range.
Mountain hare welfare on grouse moors involves large-scale killing of a native species that is declining across its range, to protect a non-native managed game bird population. The welfare harms are acute: shooting of mountain hares, particularly in large organised culls, causes deaths that may not all be immediate or clean, and the disturbance associated with culling operations causes stress throughout the local hare population. Non-lethal hits from shooting result in injured animals that may take hours or days to die. The welfare case against large-scale mountain hare culls is compounded by the conservation concern - mountain hare populations in Scotland have declined and the species requires active conservation rather than lethal management to serve a commercially managed game species. The close season introduced in Scotland in 2021 provides partial protection during the most vulnerable periods but does not address the fundamental welfare concern of large-scale lethal control. Non-lethal tick control measures and habitat management that reduces tick habitat would provide alternative approaches to grouse moor tick burden management without mountain hare welfare harm.