Dog walker ‘set off seal stampede’

A dog walker has hit back over claims he caused a stampede of 1,000 seals.

He and a friend were accused of disturbing the legally protected colony of grey seals at Forvie Nature Reserve on the Aberdeenshire coast on Aug 25.

Police were handed footage of the incident by Ythan Seal Watch, but said there was “no criminality”.

The dog walker said: “We saw no barriers of any description. Attached to [a] log was one sign. Based on what the sign actually says, I believe we followed all the directions it gave. If [we] caused the seals to stampede, this was not our intent and is something we apologise for.”

The watch group said: “Visitors ignore very simple instructions to protect a very important site for the grey seal.” It added that there were 35 cases of people causing seals to stampede in 2017-18, risking smaller seals being crushed to death. Samantha Herbert