Campaign for Shooting

"In Britain we are rightly proud of our shooting sports. Game management and conservation shape and enhance our landscape. Wildlife thrives where land is managed for shooting. Over a million people are involved in shooting; many more enjoy the end product as consumers of pheasants, partridges and other game. Moreover, shooting makes a substantial contribution to the rural economy -
often at times and in places where income is scarce."
The Code of Good Shooting Practice 2003

September 2006 saw the publication of a report by PACEC, which shows that shooting benefits the UK economy by £1.6 billion pounds per year, £240 million of these benefits are to the Scottish economy.

This income is brought into Scotland through 1.5 million shooting days (approximately 250,000 people shooting 6 days each per year) per year and supports the equivalent of 11,000 full time jobs.

Shooters in Scotland spend around £43 million pounds per annum on habitat and species conservation work on around 700,000 hectares of land (ie 9% of Scotland’s land). In addition to this 4.4million of Scotland’s 7.8million hectares are influenced by shooting.

For more information visit www.shootingfacts.co.uk

Despite the huge positive impact that shooting has on Scotland, it still suffers from a lack of understanding amongst the non-shooting public and certain sections of the media and government.The SCA Campaign for Shooting seeks to promote shooting to a wider audience in order to protect shooting from damaging legislation in the short term and preserve it for the benefit of Scotland in the long term.

We do this by:

Promoting Game Meat
The most important output of shooting is healthy, natural, tasty, free-range game meat. The Scottish Small Game Group and the Game-to-Eat campaign promote game to the public. The Scottish Small Game Group regularly appears at events throughout Scotland, offering free samples and cookery demonstrations. Visit our events (Hyperlink) pages for further details.

Political Work
Monitoring legislation from Holyrood, Westminster and Europe in order to make sure it won’t have a negative impact on shooting.

eg: The ban on tail docking of dogs under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) bill. The SCA is currently (October 2006) preparing a case to exempt working dogs from this ban. Working gun dogs (and terriers) can injure their tails when working, hence the reason that we will continue to campaign for working Spaniels etc to be exempt from this ban.

Strengthening the Shooting Community
Our new Area Shooting Officers are working throughout Scotland to bring shooting people closer together in order to ensure that we at the SCA have an increased understanding of local issues which can then shape our campaigns. ASO’s will also play a key role in telling the wider shooting community about latest research, and helping them to communicate the benefits of shooting to the general public.

Encouraging New Comers
Shooting is for everyone, and we run Ladies Shooting Days especially for ladies who would like to try clay pigeon shooting, even complete beginners. Youngsters also get the chance to try clay pigeon and target shooting on our Next Generation Country Days held annually throughout Scotland in the Easter and summer holidays.

See our events page for details, and our links pages for information on shooting grounds and schools in your area. Increasing the contribution of shooting to the Scottish economy

The SCA is a member of the Scottish Countrysports Tourism Group which aims to increase the number of tourists who come to Scotland as a shooting destination.

Supporting and encouraging self-regulation
Shooting in Scotland is generally well run and self regulating. It is important that we continue to demonstrate this as this helps to earn the shooting community the respect of government and the general public. The new Game Shoot Standards Assurance Scheme seeks to award shoots with a certificate to show that they are operating according to best practice.

Shoots can obtain further info on the GSSAS from their local Area Shooting Officer who can be contacted via the SCA office info@scottishcountrysidealliance.org