A farm manager from Argyll and Bute has been fined £1,200 for possession of a banned pesticide. The discovery was made in 2009 after the discovery of a dead golden eagle, which had been poisoned.

The golden eagle, one of an estimated 400 breeding pairs in the UK, was found by walkers in 2009, having been poisoned with carbofuran. A police investigation led to a search of the Auch Estate, where farm manager Tom McKellar admitted to leaving out poisoned meat as bait for foxes.  

Three containers of the banned pesticide were found during a search of the estate and its grounds, as well as a dead fox, a sheep carcass laced with carbofuran and a number of illegal firearms.

In April this year the farm manager pleaded guilty to charges of possessing carbofuran. He was fined for possessing the substance at the Sheriff’s Court in Oban on Friday (7th September), having been sentenced to 300 hours unpaid labour for possession of illegal firearms at the High Court in Glasgow in 2010

Although local police officers have said they hope the case serves as a deterrent to anyone thinking about using banned poisons, the RSPB has reacted strongly to the sentence, which the organisation has said is insufficient.

RSPB head of investigations, Ian Thomson, said the outcome had left conservationists “dismayed” and asserted that a review of penalties for killing protected wildlife is in order.  

He elaborated, "Whilst we welcome the conviction, yet again we are dismayed that the final result of a high-profile enquiry poses little in the way of a deterrent to those who continue to flagrantly disregard our wildlife protection laws."

"The illegal killing of protected birds of prey remains a persistent problem in some parts of Scotland with, for example, six further golden eagles confirmed as illegally poisoned since this incident, including one in Lochaber earlier this year."

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