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Okay.

I will look at this from a sheep farmer’s point of view, given my background as a sheep farmer. To a sheep farmer, serious damage is when a fox is coming in and lifting lambs—killing lambs and taking tails and ears as trinkets for cubs, killing lambs to feed young cubs or just killing for its own food. For a sheep farmer, 10 per cent is a colossal figure to lose to a fox kill. Having been on the receiving end of that kind of killing, I am well aware of the distress that it causes not only to the lambing percentage, but to the shepherd or sheep farmer who has to go out every morning and deal with those kills.

One thing that slightly concerns me about this area relates to the licence being granted. To me, serious damage is anything when a fox is predating hens, for example. We will come on to environmental issues later. Who decides what “serious damage” is? If NatureScot comes back to the person who is in the position of looking after the livestock in their charge, whatever it is, and says that it does not consider something to be serious damage, how do we come to a balance?

Another thing that was mentioned was getting a licence for environmental reasons, which would have to be done under a scheme. Again, I will give my personal experience. I watched wading bird numbers plummet with the increased number of ravens. Nobody was paying attention to that, but the by-product of my being able to control ravens to protect sheep was that it helped to maintain wading bird numbers. Who is the best person to tell NatureScot of an environmental or ecological issue on land that it is managing? Who makes that decision?

There will have to be co-operation and trust between NatureScot and land managers.

Okay. I am slightly confused, now. There is a genuine method of controlling a warren. If a warren is sitting beside an arable plantation, people will want to clear it out, to avoid crop damage. Quite often, a keeper will have, for example, a couple of lurchers or a terrier. Ferrets will go down and will flush the rabbit out. With the best will in the world, rabbits can come out three or four at a time, and the dogs will get them. No one is going to stand there with a gun and go bang, bang, bang, because that is just not feasible. Would that become illegal under the bill?

Thank you, convener. I would like to come back in later, on the timing of licences.

That is my point—they are not really breaking the law by deliberately allowing a fox to escape.

I will continue with the example of foxes, because that is where a lot of the concern lies. People are not breaking the law if a fox is killed before it escapes, because the purpose—as you have just said—is to prevent the hunt. I fully understand the problem that we have if a fox escapes and people shout, “Tally-ho! We’re off!” and they start chasing the fox around the countryside. Would that problem not be alleviated by having more guns and making sure that there is a minimum number of guns so that the fox never gets past the line of guns? Would that not cover that problem?

Let me give you this scenario. If you had a pack of dogs hunting through a copse and a fox was flushed, and if you had two guns 75 yards either side and the fox went through the middle of them, you would have to go after it. I understand that that is a loophole, and I understand that that would cause genuine concern. However, if you have dogs hunting through a copse, most foxes will never see the hounds, because they are on the way out the other end. If you have 10 guns along the top, the fox is not going to get past the guns, therefore it is dead before the hounds are anywhere near it. Would that not solve the problem of chasing across open countryside?

What, then, would be the purpose of recording numbers?

It is not, then, to show the number of foxes that would be controlled.

Okay.

I very much take Hugh Dignon’s point about the raven licensing scheme. I had a severe problem with ravens. When the licensing process started, it was clunky and it took too much time to grant a licence, meaning that too much damage was done in the interim. However, NatureScot quickly got its act together and the scheme worked a treat.

That said, the method for controlling ravens is different from that for controlling foxes, and the important period in which to grant a licence for fox control is prior to lambing, not during lambing. We do not need proof that foxes kill lambs—they do. We do not need proof that the damage that they will do is anything other than a reality.

The licensing period should not be for a short, 14-day period but for a season, to allow landowners, farmers and tenants to ensure that they have the numbers under control as much as they can. With the best will in the world, Leia—I do not mean this to be derogatory—lamping foxes is not easy. It takes a lot of skill and time, and you have to know the foxes’ movements.

If we have a licensing scheme in which we can control an animal that we know will predate stock prior to the start of lambing, we will already be halfway there. If we wait until after lambing has started to grant a licence, there will be disruption to lambing fields and parks. I urge you to consider how you will create the licence. It should not last for just 14 days, and it should not be issued during the lambing period but prior to it.