After several poisoning incidents in the Glenfarg area of Perthshire over a number of years, a buzzard poisoned by carbofuran was found on the Balmanno Estate in November 2001.
Tayside Police, the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department and the RSPB searched the shooting estate, as well as the premises of the gamekeeper, on 15 March 2002, under powers of the Food and Environment Act. On the estate, they found a freshly dead crow, which was later found to contain carbofuran. At the keeper’s premises they found a small quantity of carbofuran, a small egg collection and several gin traps with pieces of fur on the jaws. The keeper was detained and admitted that he had used the gin traps to take fox cubs. Admissions were also made in relation to the buzzard’s egg.
After many hearings, stretching back to an original trial date of 19 November 2002, the keeper changed his pleas to guilty. On 12 November 2003, at Perth Sheriff Court, he pleaded guilty to charges of possession of carbofuran in an unlabelled container, possession of several gin traps for use against foxes and possession of one buzzard egg.
The Procurator Fiscal accepted a ‘not guilty’ plea to poisoning a crow with carbofuran. The keeper was fined £250.
In Scotland, gin traps were only banned for use against foxes in 1974; in England and Wales, they were banned in 1958.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/23-0617-03-04_legal%20eagle40%20v2_tcm9-132963.pdf
Raptor Persecution UK 