Calls for leading Sheriff to quit as PAW Chair

The richness and diversity of Argyll’s wildlife is one of its core attractions for visitors.

There is the internationally significant White Tailed Sea Eagle programme on Mull, alongside the Loch Frisa Eagle Hide, with sight of both Golden  and Sea Eagles. There is Loch Indaal and the Loch Gruinart reserve on Islay. There are the corncrakes on Tiree.

There is the west coast passage route of orcas, monitored by the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust at Tobermory.  And there are the seal colonies, with the Common Seal numbers dropping to a dangerous point, prey to illegal shootings and unprotected by both law and by law enforcement.

There are of course the beavers, reintroduced after 400 years, homed at Knapdale and already, to the consternation of those who never wanted them, making independent lives for themselves in neighbouring land.

And there are the herds of Roe and Red Deer, hard hit by the long and deep cold of the current winter.

Wildlife crime threatens all of this wealth – from illegal egg collection, to the illegal poisoning of raptors, to the illegal (and legal) shooting of Common Seals and to the poaching of Deer.

Wildlife crime has both a moral and an economic impact and Scotland has a part of its police force dedicated to this field of protection and prosecution.

Now there is something of a stushie following remarks made at a major wildlife crime conference at the Scottish Police College at Tullibardine by Sheriff Kevin Drummond.

Sheriff Drummond was asked whether those convicted of wildlife crime should be given tougher sentences. The question was put to him by Mark Rafferty, a former police wildlife crime investigator who now works with the SSPCA.

Witnesses to the exchange have reported that Sheriff Drummond’s response was to ask Mr Rafferty if he wanted to see them hanged, as they are in Iraq. He is then quoted as saying that wildlife crime was not ‘even on the second page’ and advised Mr Rafferty to get a life.

Mr Drummond happens to be Chair of the legislation, regulation and guidance subgroup of the Scottish Government’s Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime (PAW). He has also presided over training trials to help police and procurators fiscal develop their handling of wildlife offences.

His remarks at Tullibardine left the conference stunned and before delegates could recover their voices, the conference was promptly closed down, with no responses possible.

However there have been responses of another kind. Environment Minister, Roseanna Cunningham, has been contacted by angry representatives of organsations like the Lothian and Borders Study Group, asking for Sheriff Drummod to be removed from his Chairmanship of the PAW subgroup.

His ‘not even on the second page’ remark on wildlife crime is said to have arisen from his asserting the greater priority of robbery and violent assault.

Many would agree with him on this yet most of the crimes committed against wildlife are violent assaults and all are robbery. The robbery is plain when the nation pays for significant protection and reintroduction programmes; but beyond that, it is also robbery to take from or destroy part of the national stock of species.