May
8, 2019, 8:20 am
A
wildlife investigator has claimed that the numbers of reported crimes against
protected birds in Scotland are merely the “tip of an iceberg”.
New
figures reveal that in the last ten years, there have been 124 incidents in the
north-east relating to section one of the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
The
section targets people who intentionally kills or injure any wild bird or takes
any wild bird or their eggs.
And the
figures show the north-east has seen a higher number of such incidents than any
other region in Scotland, followed by the Highlands and Islands where police
recorded 64 incidents.
But Ian
Thomson, head of investigations at RSPB Scotland, said the figures should be
taken “with a bucket of salt”.
He said:
“The number of wildlife crimes against birds across Scotland will truly be far
higher than the figures suggest.
“The
numbers are only the tip of the iceberg – and we don’t know how big the actual
iceberg actually is.
“Nature
is often treated with an ‘out of sign out of mind approach’ and it is the
number of incidents not recorded by police that are the truly problem – the
ones there aren’t any witnesses to.”
While
wildlife crime is “rarely” brought to the courts, the RSPB hope recent cases
will lead to increased punishments for those who do harm wild birds in
Scotland.
The
charity previously welcomed the conviction of Aberdeen oil executive Keith
Riddoch, who accidentally shot a protected bird of prey in 2017.
Riddoch
blasted the buzzard with a shotgun during a shoot on a Highland estate and was
fined £500 for the crime.
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