Oh dear. It looks like those fools who run PAW have made a serious error of judgement (again). The news section on the PAW website contains information about a recent deer training course for Police Wildlife Crime Officers and a Procurator Fiscal, helping them to understand the process from slaughter to table. All well and good….that is until you read where the training course was held…
Balmanno Farm.
For the eagle-eyed amongst you, you will recognise the name ‘Balmanno’ from the Named Estates section of this blog, and also from the blog entry on 5th March 2010. These entries refer to a conviction for wildlife crime of a gamekeeper on the Balmanno Estate. A poisoned buzzard (killed by Carbofuran), gin traps and an egg collection were found on this estate in 2001-2002, and a gamekeeper was convicted of wildlife crimes at Perth Sheriff Court on 12th November 2003. A quick google search identifies Balmanno Farm as being part of the Balmanno Estate in Perthshire.
Click here for the PAW press release: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/Wildlife-Habitats/paw-scotland/news/TrainingEvenReport190310
Well done PAW! Your credibility is plummeting to new depths.
Raptor Persecution UK 
The real scandal here is the amount of precious resource – government and police being diverted from conservation problems to theft – which is basically what “poaching” is.
At a time when golden and sea eagles are being poisoned it would seem particularly wrong headed to put police officers on intensive anti- deer poaching and hare coursing patrols.
Of course what that is all really about is that the shooting estates and their very influential supporters – which includes national and local politicians and senior and local police officers – have been appalled that the old alliances have broken down and that the illegal killing of predators has been exposed to public view. Dear God some head keepers have actually been dragged through the courts!..landowners have been arrested!…
So what do our police and politicians do?…they appease the shooting/landowning lobby by wasying resources on the realtively small and in conservation terms, completely irrelevant subject of poaching.
“Look at us…we are all working together to help stamp out public embarrassment…ooops sorry…to help stamp out wildlife crime.”