Geese top NFUS menu for review

Published on 02/08/2012 00:00

WITH massive increases in the number of geese coming to Scotland, farm industry leaders will today meet Scottish environment minister Stewart Stevenson to suggest it is time to review management schemes.

NFU Scotland president, Nigel Millar said: “Geese in their thousands are devastating grassland in our most fragile farming areas, threatening farm businesses and livestock numbers as the land can no longer be grazed.”

He claimed Scotland’s farmers, crofters and land managers who have all played a key role in helping geese numbers recover were now burdened by management schemes which no longer sufficiently offset business losses.

He said: “The very success of the conservation effort now threatens the farmed habitat that is vital to the flocks of wintering geese. [Farmers] perceive that the Scottish Government has left them to shoulder the cost of a public conservation commitment.”

Miller added the Scottish Government had to consider new approaches to geese management as a matter of urgency.