The culling of wild beavers in Scotland is to continue unabated — despite Scottish Government body NatureScot being found to be issuing licenses unlawfully by a judicial review.
It has emerged that there is to be no pause or halt in the practice of shooting beavers deemed to be damaging agricultural land for farmers who have already been licensed to do so.
Charity TreesforLife had sought a judicial review of the practice of culling, and were partially successful when one of their complaints was upheld.
The court ruled NatureScot must set out openly and fully the reasons why it believes any future licence to kill beavers should be granted, and that a failure to do so in the past was unlawful.
However, this is not enough to halt the culling of beaver under the current system and NatureScot has said that it will continue.
Beavers on the Tay
READ MORE: Treesforlife wins court battle over NatureScot culling policy
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government agency said: "In light of this part of the ruling, we will amend existing licenses when needed, to show that culling is a necessary last resort, due to issues such as agricultural damage.
"The court decision does not affect the legality of any acts carried out under current species control licence for beaver."
Beavers have become naturalised on the River Tay since escaping or being freed from private collections sometime in the 1990s.
Hundreds of the animals are thought to be living free in the area - with Perth being identified as the first city in the UK to have a population of 'urban' beavers earlier this year.
READ MORE: Scottish beavers given new home in Cornwall
But there are concerns the dam-building creatures damage agricultural land, bringing them into conflict with farmers.
The Scottish government designated the aquatic mammals a protected species from 1 May 2019, but records show more than 200 have been culled since then.
As well as culling the animals, NatureScot has sponsored a programme of trapping and relocation, with some beavers being transported to Knappdale, where a scientific study of the species re-introduction is underway.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel