Grouse shooting has been hailed as a "major contributor to the rural economy" as the season gets underway. Speaking on August 12 – the so-called "glorious twelfth", when the red grouse shooting season traditionally begins – Scottish Land & Estates described the "decisive benefits" the season brings.
Economic Impact Study
The comments come after a recent study highlighted the economic impact from seven estates in the Angus Glens, based on data for the year 2025. The study, published by the Angus Glens Moorland Group and Scottish Land & Estates, found that the estates' annual expenditure of £6.6 million included £3.66 million on wages, supporting 86 full-time equivalent jobs and 768 seasonal workers.
Estates Body's View
Ross Ewing, director of moorland and strategic projects for Scottish Land & Estates, said: "The grouse shooting season is a major contributor to the rural economy. Year-round expenditure by estates supports hundreds of jobs and helps ensure the viability of local businesses. The evidence is clear: moorland management and grouse shooting deliver decisive benefits for the Angus Glens and upland areas across Scotland – supporting people in work, keeping money in the local economy, sustaining rural skills and helping conserve the landscapes and wildlife that make these places special."
Green Opposition
However, the Scottish Greens have renewed calls for driven grouse shooting to come to an end. Scottish Greens rural affairs spokesperson Ariane Burgess MSP said: "After another summer in which we have seen the enormous destruction that wildfires can cause, we should be restoring our nature and making our countryside more resilient to the climate crisis, not intensively managing vast landscapes to produce more birds to be shot. Scotland's land is one of our greatest assets. It should be supporting thriving rural communities, restoring nature and tackling the climate crisis, rather than serving as a private playground for the wealthy few."
Declining Populations
Meanwhile, a new study could shed light on why red grouse populations in Scotland have declined over recent years, conservationists have said. Populations of the distinctive upland bird have seen a series of sharp declines over the last 10 years. There have been several widespread breeding failures and sharp declines across grouse moors managed under a range of different systems.
Monitoring by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) showed a poor 2024 breeding season led to an average 40% drop in pair counts across England and a 34% decline in Scotland. Summer brood counts then revealed a further fall in the number of adult birds, with a 36% drop in England and 29% in Scotland.
Research Project
The GWCT said the maternal grouse project, which brings together more than four decades of research with field studies of hens, could help them understand what determines grouse breeding success. It hopes the findings can then be translated into practical guidance to help estates build more resilient grouse populations.
Nick Hesford, director of GWCT Scotland, said: "For decades we've known what grouse populations are doing because we've monitored them consistently across the uplands. What the maternal grouse project allows us to understand is why some populations have remained consistently low and what's been driving recent declines and failures to breed successfully. By following individual hens from before they lay until their chicks fledge, we're beginning to uncover how nutrition, weather, habitat and disease interact to influence breeding success. It's a level of understanding that simply hasn't been possible before."
The study, which is now in its fourth year in northern England, sees researchers capture and radio-tag hens in the springtime before carefully following them throughout the breeding season. In March, the GWCT caught and tagged 60 hens across four long-standing study sites in the North Pennines and 51 hens across four new sites in the Highlands.
The team monitors nesting attempts, egg production, hatch success and chick survival while also measuring heather quality, cotton grass production, cranefly emergence, weather conditions and parasite burdens. By combining these detailed field measurements with decades of population data, the trust hopes to identify the subtle interactions that determine whether a breeding season succeeds or fails.
The study expanded into north-east Scotland earlier this year and will move into southern Scotland in 2027, allowing researchers to compare whether the drivers of breeding success differ between landscapes and regions. Mr Hesford said: "The ultimate aim of the maternal grouse project is to identify factors limiting red grouse breeding success and translating this into practical guidance that can help estates build more resilient grouse populations and deliver more consistent grouse bags in the years ahead. This understanding will also help guide future, modern, sustainable grouse moor management and conservation in the face of climate change, poor breeding years and increasing legislation and regulation."
