Islands’ goose scheme is cooked

A call has been made for NatureScot to re-think its decision to end financial support for helping to manage the increasing number of geese found on many of Scotland’s islands.

NFU Scotland said that local goose management groups (LGMGs) on Uist, Tiree and Coll, Lewis and Harris and Orkney had been informed by NatureScot, the public body responsible for advising Scottish ministers on natural heritage issues, that it was set to step back from supporting the scheme and offer instead a simple ‘advisory’ role in future.

NatureScot had previously indicated that it would support LGMGs until sustainable funding arrangements for adaptive management were in operation - and NFU Scotland claimed that this had not yet been achieved.

The union’s president, Martin Kennedy said that while progress on managing resident greylag numbers had been made on all islands, recently there had been significant setbacks, with cutbacks in activity caused by Covid restrictions leading to goose numbers increasing once again.

Stating that while he recognised that the schemes were always going to be short term, the grazing pressure of the goose populations was “devastating” to farmers and crofters, and he said now was not the time to remove support.

“When we look at the objectives that were set in 2017, several have yet to be achieved, including the development of longer-term funding arrangements for management and development of infrastructure and marketing to allow the sale of goose meat.

“It is not appropriate for NatureScot to withdraw financial and practical support and expect the pilots to continue as self-financing,” concluded Kennedy.