Royal Society for the Protection of Birds culls goats at Loch Lomond

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  November/December 2013:

DUMBARTON,  Scotland––Less than two days after representatives of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds pledged to Scotland for Animals that they would fully investigate the possible alternatives to culling 40 feral goats at Inversnaid,  on the banks of Loch Lomond,   RSPB conservation planning officer Anne McCall announced that the killing “has ended as we have reached the target of 20 culled goats for this year.”   The goats were killed,  said Animal Concern Advice Line secretary John H. Robins,  despite an offer of a lifetime home for them at the Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Frettenham,  Norwich. “I am very concerned that the RSPB simply stepped up the culling to reach their kill quota before meeting with SfA to discuss the alternatives,”  Robins added.  “In recent years in Scotland all species of deer,  grey squirrels,  mountain hares and hedgehogs have been culled by various charities and/or government agencies.  We even had to oppose a cull of wallabies on an island on Loch Lomond.  Every day of the year seals and birds are being culled under government licenses. “In 2007 the RSPB supported culling of hedgehogs in the Uists,”  a group of rocky offshore islands. “Thanks to outside pressure that cull was eventually replaced with a non-lethal alternative [relocating hedgehogs to the mainland] and in 2013 the RSPB is using hedgehogs in their advertising,”  Robins said. Animal Concern Advice Line is descended from the Scottish Anti-Vivisection Society,  founded in 1876.