A CAMPAIGN group is set to protest against grouse shooting and private flights on one of the busiest days in the sport’s calendar as “both are also disproportionately damaging and need to end”.

August 12, also known as the Glorious Twelfth, marks the first day of the red grouse shooting season.

Extinction Rebellion's regional Dundee group is to gather at 11am on Saturday 12, outside Dundee Airport for the "Inglorious Twelfth" demonstration.

The group has said the shooting sport has “huge environmental costs” and people must “demand cheaper efficient accessible public transport” in the face of private and commercial jets.

Dundee airport is used for private and chartered flights – both providing campaigners with major concerns “given aviation’s contribution to the current climate disaster”.

While there is some uncertainty around the extent of land managed as grouse moor in Scotland it is ­estimated to cover between one to 1.5 million hectares – 12% to 18% of the country’s landmass.

READ MORE: Gamekeepers call for fox killing to be legal as 'act of conservation' 

One campaigner called the use of land “crazy” and “even worse, people are flying in to do this killing”.

Anne Campbell, a retired midwife involved in the direction said: "It is crazy that 15% of Scotland’s total land area should be given over to breeding animals just to be shot and, even worse, people are flying in to do this killing.”

“As an ex-midwife I worry about the future of all the wee babies I delivered. I see planes coming into this airport as something that is destroying those kids’ future. Flying has the biggest negative effect on the environment of any form of transport and here we have people flying into Dundee to kill birds for fun.

“Humans have created a blanket of pollution which is heating up and destroying our world. We need to take action to reduce this and put a stop to unnecessary flying.”

The proposed Wildlife ­Management and Muirburn Bill currently going through the Scottish Parliament aims to stop the illegal persecution of birds of prey by introducing a licensing ­regime for grouse moors.

The National:

It will also further regulate or even ban the use of certain wildlife traps and extend the existing licensing ­regime for muirburn.

The RSPB’s Birdcrime report from 2021 found there were 108 incidents of bird of prey persecution across the whole of the UK that year, with 71% linked to land managed for gamebird shooting. 

One campaigner, Robbie Kelly, called the shifting of responsibility of the climate crisis to consumers as “disingenuous”, but said it is the consumers responsibility to demand better transport options.

He said: “Yes, we urgently need system change to tackle climate change, and the disingenuous shifting of responsibility to consumers’ lifestyle choices is just that – a disingenuous diversionary tactic aimed at maintaining the status quo – but one meaningful lifestyle choice the consumer can make is to demand cheaper efficient accessible public transport that actually works and is pleasant to use, so that they can fly less.

“We have to talk openly about and dismantle the massive, largely hidden, apparatus of subsidies that supports the oil and gas industries, and that keeps cheap flights in the air, among other things.”