Animal lovers hit out at plan to kill stoats to save birds
ANIMAL rights campaigners have condemned a mass cull of stoats on Orkney, backed by the RSPB, as “inhumane.”
The wildlife charity, Scottish Natural Heritage and the local council are launching a £7 million drive to rid the island of the invasive pest.
Orkney is home to an internationally important population of ground nesting birds including seabirds, raptors and waders, all of which are prey for the stoats.
The Orkney Native Wildlife group have now begun advertising for contractors to supply more than 10,000 wooden housings for stoat traps.
The five year-long eradication project is due to start in the spring across Mainland Orkney and connected islands.
Yesterday Elisa Allen, director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said: “Culling – a euphemism for killing – is a hideously cruel and ineffective way to manage stoat populations on Orkney.
“Humans introduced stoats to the islands, so if their presence there is now a problem, they didn’t cause it.
“At the very least, we owe it to them to find a peaceful, humane solution that doesn’t involve crushing them in steel traps, in which they often endure a slow, agonisingly painful death.
“We’re fast destroying the natural world and all its non-human inhabitants, and we need to curb human aggression and start acting considerately towards other living beings.”
Stoats, which are native to the UK mainland, were first reported on Orkney in 2010, either having smuggled themselves on to a lorry, or brought in by humans as pets.
They have since become fully established on mainland Orkney, Burray and South Ronaldsay, where they eat small birds, eggs and small mammals.
In particular, stoats threaten the Orkney vole, which is found nowhere else in the world.
The ONW is advertising for 10 trappers, paid up to £21,000-a-year, with a further six support posts.
A spokeswoman for the Orkney Native Wildlife Project said: “If no action is taken we risk huge population declines in some of Orkney’s iconic native species and an irreparable change to Orkney’s natural heritage.”
On moving the stoats elsewhere, she added: “Translocations would likely be harmful to the stoats due to the prolonged time in captivity and the stress that would inevitably result.”