Well well well. Another gamekeeper from South Lanarkshire has been convicted of possessing the banned pesticide, Carbofuran. Police were alerted to the location after a member of the public found a poisoned buzzard lying next to a pheasant bait near Loanhead Farm, Lamington, South Lanarkshire, in November 2010. Lab tests by SASA revealed Carbofuran in both birds.
Today at Lanark Sheriff Court, 63 year old keeper Cyril McLachlan was fined £635 after admitting possession of Carbofuran. Yet again, a weak penalty for what is supposedly considered a seriously grave offence by the Scottish Government. Not good enough.
It is not known whether McLachlan was a member of the Scottish Gamekeepers’ Association at the time of the offence. If anyone can shed any light on this, we’d be happy to hear about it. UPDATE: The SGA has now issued a statement to say McLachlan was not a member (see here).
Well done to RSPB and SSPCA and the other agencies involved in getting this case to court.
RSPB press release here
Raptor Persecution UK 
Well the SGA site has posted a one liner saying that he is not a member. Was he ? If he was at one time…when did he leave…..did he lapse….was he expelled? Is his application for membership in the post….. will he ever be allowed to join…
I guess he was just another one of the “ROGUE” gamekeepers that the SGA keep banging on about, it’s a good job it wasn’t one of the professional gamekeepers.
Interesting, (if you can call it that), that he wasn’t charged for poisoning the Buzzard, I suppose it’s par for the course in these cases, but then I suppose it would cost too much money to have the Carbofuran found in the dead bird to be chemically matched to the Carbofuran found in the posession McLachlan. Good job it wasn’t a pet dog, or worse, a human being, I suppose the case may have been treated differently and more urgently then.
Well done to RSPB and SSPCA and the other agencies involved, unfortunately they can’t mete out the sentences.