In a feature article in the latest edition of Shooting Times, the Chairman of the National Gamekeepers Organisation, Lindsay Waddell, laments the sale of Millden Estate in Angus (see our earlier story about the sale here).
He questions the reasons behind the sale, “just as the moor is coming good“. It’s a strange description for an estate where two-year-old golden eagle Alma was found poisoned in 2009 (see here). His theory about why Millden has come on the market goes like this:
“It would appear the answer lies in the recent legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament which holds landowners liable for the actions of their staff [vicarious liability], and that is something, it appears, some will not entertain at any cost. So it’s sell up, and get out. It may well turn out to be a sad day for the inhabitants of many glens if more and more of the modern-day owners decide to take the same course of action“.
Interesting.
Waddell goes on to acknowledge that there are still landowners (he says “a few”, we say ‘too many’) who won’t manage their land without the use of [illegal] poison and says these individuals have to shoulder a lot of the blame for the introduction of vicarious liability. No disagreement there, Lindsay – the criminals within your industry are finally having to face the music after 60 long years of relentless and systematic illegal raptor persecution.
He also comments that the new legislation (vicarious liability) is ‘open to abuse’. He writes: “It is all very easy for items to be ‘found’ on a piece of land“. By ‘items’, does he mean poisoned birds and poisoned baits, and enormous caches of illegal poison? Much like what was found on Skibo Estate in 2010? The ‘items’ that Dean Barr, sporting manager at Skibo Estate, claimed in the press had been planted by the RSPB (see here)? Obviously his press statement was made before he was found guilty of possessing 10.5 kg of Carbofuran – the UK’s biggest haul of this banned pesticide to date (see here).
Waddell continues by suggesting that Millden may be the first of many Scottish sporting estates to be sold. Let’s hope so. I can think of more than just ‘a few’ whose closure is long overdue.
Shooting Times article here
Raptor Persecution UK 
Keepers have been trying on the old petty criminals excuse “it wisnae me, someone put that ….10 poisoned baits/2 dead eagles/bag of carbofuran/dead wild cat walled up in a dyke…there”….for years. Dean Barr was by no means the first. Of course if you keep throwing mud like that, some of it sticks. Some of their more gullible colleagues are the first to fall for it…Its also a way of covering up the embarrassment at being caught – every keeper likes to think he knows whats happening on his ground…getting caught out is personal….and more worryingly even government committees can be tainted by this.
But the public aren’t that stupid…they see sites like this showing again and again where the real criminals are working away. Mind you…if this site didnt exist you’d have a lot more people in the dark and believing such obvious fabrications.