from the Sunday Herald, 19 September 1999
Gamekeepers are poisoning Scotland's protected birds of prey and escaping prosecution.
A report to be published tomorrow reveals that poison is now the greatest threat facing golden eagles, peregrine falcons, buzzards and rare red kites.
"People are quite literally getting away with murder," said Keith Morton, an investigations officer with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who produced the report.
"It is relatively easy to prove that poison has been laid on a particular estate and that the law has been broken. But it is much more difficult to prove which individual actually did it."
Only one gamekeeper has been successfully prosecuted for poisoning birds of prey, in 1998.
The RSPB's new report urges the Scottish parliament to introduce prison sentences to deter persistent poisoners, as well as stricter regulations on the possession of poisons. The maximum sentence for killing birds of prey is currently a £5000 fine.
The RSPB pins the blame for the growing number of poisonings on two particular Highland estates: Glenfiddich and Cabrach, near Dufftown in Aberdeenshire, and Corrybrough at Tomatin near Inverness. Fourteen of last year's poisonings took place on the two estates.
By far the worst culprit was Glenfiddich and Cabrach, which is owned - through a company called Golden Land Securities - by an English multi-millionaire, Christopher Moran.
A self-made financier based in London, he is friends with three former Conservative cabinet ministers: Michael Howard, Peter Lilley and Lord Lang. He is reputed to be worth £60 million.
The RSPB reports 10 incidents on his 41,500-acre estate between February and May 1998. Ten rabbits, six pigeons, six grouse and two hares were laced with the lethal pesticide carbofuran and left out on the hill as bait for birds of prey.
There is evidence that a peregrine falcon, two buzzards, a crow, a gull and a stoat were poisoned as a result, and suspicions that countless others suffered the same fate. Three illegal pole traps and an owl whose legs had been smashed by a trap were also found on Moran's estate.
“This represents by far the worst group of incidents on a single estate ever recorded,” claims the RSPB.
Glenfiddich and Cabrach was jointly investigated by the RSPB, the police and the Scottish Office last year. “The scale of what was happening was enormous," said Dave Dick, the RSPB's senior investigations officer. "When the police came to pick up the bait and carry it off the hill, they ran out of sacks.”
Moran's head gamekeeper, Stanley Gordon, pleaded guilty at Elgin Sheriff Court last October to having a dead peregrine in the back of his Land-Rover. It had been poisoned by carbofuran. He was fined £700.
Christopher Moran did not return phonecalls from the Sunday Herald last week. However, he has said on a previous occasion that he is very careful to ensure that his estate is managed “with care and consideration in accordance with best practice”.
On Corrybrough estate, another operation by the RSPB, police and the Scottish Office in February and March 1998 found eight buzzards and one red kite killed by carbofuran.
“It was one of the worst I have ever seen,” said Dick. “We were pulling dead buzzards out from a pit full of domestic rubbish and dead sheep. One buzzard was caught alive in a spring trap with its legs all chewed up, and there was a red kite poisoned. It was pretty grim.”
Red kites were only reintroduced to Scotland 10 years ago, but there are still no more than 30 breeding pairs in the country. In addition to the one that was killed at Corrybrough, there were two others poisoned on the Black Isle and one in Crieff last year, plus four more the previous year. The RSPB fears that further persecution could threaten the bird's existence.
Corrybrough is a 7400-acre estate owned by John Tinsley, a landowner from Lincolnshire. He said on Friday that he did not want to comment on the RSPB allegations as he was not aware of them. But he added: “It is the policy here to obey the law. That is absolutely clear.”
The RSPB report reveals that the number of poisonings confirmed by government scientists in Scotland has more than doubled over three years. Last year there was hard evidence of 34 incidents, compared to 23 in 1997 and 14 in 1995.
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