Year: 2014

On Wednesday we blogged about an article that had appeared in the Courier that morning. The article was all about a retired Angus gamekeeper, Colin Gair, who claimed that gamekeepers were being put under pressure to use poison baits to protect grouse stocks. Here is what we wrote in that blog.

The Courier article seemed to cause quite a stir and was soon being cited all over social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. That’s not surprising – it’s not very often that you get a gamekeeper willing to admit that illegal practices such as poisoning are still taking place so of course, people would be interested in reading about that.

We didn’t think anything more of it until Thursday morning. After reading one of the comments left on our blog it became apparent that the original article in the Courier appeared to have been edited with some material removed and some new material added.

That’s not so unusual – many on-line news articles are edited, often adding new quotes from different sources when they become available; we even do that on our own lowly blog. However, not many news articles are edited in such a radical way as to change the original information into something completely different. Bizarrely, that is exactly what looks like has happened with the Courier article.

After some digging, we have been able to find a cached version of the original Courier article, which was published on-line at 9.07 am on Weds 8th Jan 2014. Here is the text:

Gamekeepers are being put under pressure to use illegal poison to protect grouse stocks, a retired keeper has claimed.

Colin Gair, who worked across a variety of Angus estates during a 50-year career, has hit out at the use of poisoned baits, which claimed the life of a golden eagle in Angus in November.

Fearnan’s death is the latest in a series of incidents — several other eagles and other raptors having been shot, poisoned or trapped on sporting estates.

Mr Gair, 66, claimed the situation in Angus had deteriorated in the past two years and is urging gamekeepers to speak out if they are being asked to use poison.

He said: “Grouse have to be reared naturally on the heather moors, therefore vermin must be controlled, but legally all the keeper can do is trap and shoot.

“If you are a gamekeeper who is a married man with wife and family and the very nature of the job entails living in a tied house, pressure can be applied to you.

“If you are asked by a landowner or the tenant to use poison it is not easy for a keeper to say ‘I refuse to do this’ when his house, job and future might be at risk.”

The Tayside division of Police Scotland said their inquiries into the death of Fearnan are continuing.

Now, compare the original version of the Courier article with the edited version that appeared on-line five hours later at 2.07 pm on Weds 8th Jan 2014. Here is the text:

Gamekeepers are being urged to contact police if they are asked by landowners or tenants to use illegal poisons to protect grouse stocks.

Retired keeper Colin Gair made the plea in the wake of the death of the golden eagle Fearnan, which died after being poisoned in Angus in November.

The type of poison used has not been revealed by police, but website Raptor Persecution Scotland, which has been tracking the series of killings in Angus, claim the poison was the illegal pesticide carbofuran.

In the past five and a half years, four eagles, a red kite and seven buzzards have been shot, poisoned or trapped on sporting estates in the Angus glens.

Mr Gair said he didn’t have pressure applied to him to use poison during his career, but was aware of the practice taking place.

He claimed young keepers who are fearful of losing their job could easily be coerced into using poison by unscrupulous tenants.

“I am certain many moors do not use poison, but some do and there are areas of Angus which are regarded as raptor black holes,” he claimed.

“If you are a young keeper with a wife and kids you dare not stick your head above the parapet, but I hope that someone will come forward and report that they have been asked to use poison to police.”

Mr Gair, 66, said the agricultural poisons used would be very difficult to obtain by gamekeepers and speculated that they were more likely to be supplied by corrupt traders to one or two shoot managers before being passed down to keepers.

He added: “Who is the real criminal in the poisoning cases? Is it the keeper who knowingly uses the chemical or is it another person who deliberately buys the chemical and passes it on to keepers with instructions to use it for vermin control?

“With most of these concentrated agricultural chemicals you would just need a few drops on an animal’s carcase and it would be deadly for anything that eats it.”

Tayside Raptor Study Group expert and wildlife artist Keith Brockie has called on the Scottish Government to licence shooting estates, a move Mr Gair said he would not oppose.

However, if licensing did come in, he said there would have to be some “give and take” and that the killing of certain raptors be allowed.

He added: “If gamekeeping and shooting interests are to face a licencing system, then we should be given something in return.”

Anyone with information that could assist police inquiries regarding the death of Fearnan is asked to contact 101, or speak to any officer.

That’s quite a different story being told in the edited version. What struck us the most was the change in the opening paragraph. In the original version, Mr Gair’s claim is crystal clear:

“Gamekeepers ARE BEING put under pressure to use illegal poison to protect grouse stocks“.

In the edited version, this claim has been considerably diluted to this:

“Gamekeepers are being urged to contact police IF they are asked by landowners or tenants to use illegal poisons to protect grouse stocks“.

Suddenly the article has gone from ‘they are being put under pressure’ to ‘if they are being asked’.

Another  significant change is the removal of Mr Gair’s claim that ‘the situation in Angus has deteriorated in the past two years‘. That statement does not appear in the edited version.

New material in the edited version includes: a reference to this blog, Mr Gair’s claims that he was never asked to poison anything throughout his career, his claim that ‘young keepers could easily be coerced’ [into poisoning], his view that ‘many moors do not use poison’, his view on the ‘difficulty’ of obtaining poisons, the reference to Keith Brockie and Keith Brockie’s view that estate licensing should be on the cards, and Mr Gair’s view of estate licensing.

We are intrigued by the scale of the editing that took place on the original article, and we’re particularly interested in who or what might have prompted such fundamental changes to the original article. Who might not have been happy with the claims made in the original article, that gamekeepers were being pressurised by landowners to use poison to protect grouse stocks? And who might have the power and influence to instruct those editorial changes? Hmmm….

Meanwhile, the landowners’ organisation Scottish Land & Estates has written a letter to the Courier to complain about the [edited] version of the article. Here’s what they had to say:

Sir,

The article by Rob McLaren “Gamekeepers urged to report unscrupulous owners” (January 8) repeats some very dangerous assumptions.  The death of the golden eagle “Fearnan” has been subject to police investigation for over a month and there has been no indication that it resulted from the actions of a gamekeeper or that it was related to grouse moor management. Anything more than was included in the police press release of 19th December is speculation.

The gamekeeper Colin Mair [sic], whose purely personal comments are repeated in the article, admits that he “didn’t have pressure applied to him to use poison during his career” and merely speculates that others might have done. To be quite clear, landowners do not put pressure on gamekeepers to use poison or break the law, indeed any gamekeeper would have full protection of employment legislation if that should happen. In the few cases where gamekeepers have been convicted for using poison to control predators, there has been no indication that they were told by their employers to do so and particularly no evidence that poisons were supplied by shoot managers, as the article alleges.  Since 2011, the already strong laws on employer liability have been tightened further by a “vicarious liability” offence whereby a land owner, manager or employer can be held liable for wild bird offences carried out by another person even if he was not aware of them.  Any estate employing gamekeepers now has to make it doubly clear that no illegal activity can be condoned.

If anyone, including a gamekeeper, has specific evidence as to who was responsible for the death of the golden eagle, it should be reported to the police immediately.  This case needs to be resolved as soon as possible, not least to put an end to speculative comment of the kind repeated in this article.

Tim Baynes

Director, Scottish Land & Estates Moorland Group