Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Official Report 390KB pdf

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Petition

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Control of Wild Geese (PE1490)

Agenda item 3 is consideration of PE1490, by Patrick Krause, on behalf of the Scottish Crofting Federation, on control of wild goose numbers. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government, as a matter of priority, to address the problems created by increasing populations of wild geese in the crofting areas, to reassess its decision to stop funding existing goose management programmes and to assign additional resources to crop protection and adaptive management programmes, to ensure that this threat to the future of crofting is averted. I refer members to the paper and invite comments on the petition.

As members know, I serve on the Public Petitions Committee. When the petition came before the committee, it was clear that there was a major problem for farmers and crofters in the Western Isles and the northern isles and, to a lesser extent, in Kintyre and Solway. The committee therefore decided to refer the petition to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee immediately rather than go through the normal process of approaching ministers through the Public Petitions Committee.

The committee heard extensive evidence that the problem is getting worse, particularly with regard to greylag geese, which are spilling over from the Uists into Lewis and Harris, and also into Coll and Tiree. We recognised that crofters’ existence is difficult enough without that added burden.

I can give the committee an example. My family farms just outside Stornoway. Twenty years ago, you would have been lucky to see four or five geese in the field; now there are hundreds. It is clearly becoming a major concern. A mixture of Government-backed schemes operate in the islands at varying costs. If the committee is minded to write to the minister, it would be good to get more information from the Government on what more can be done to address the problem, because it will clearly not go away until further action is taken.

Indeed. The moneys have run up into huge sums but the problem is still with us. I hope that the committee can find some consensus about what we should do. We could write to the minister with suggestions.

There has been an attempt in Orkney to manage the geese and market some of the product. We need to consider whether that is part of the solution and what there is a market for, apart from duvets. The comedian Colin Campbell once talked about seeing all these flying duvets. That is precisely what we must try to cope with in places that are being overrun.

I do not know whether members saw the programme “Hebrides—Islands on the Edge”, which showed the problem in Islay, where there are masses of deer—sorry, geese—in the area. Angus MacDonald has made some points. What about some responses from the rest of the committee?

I read somewhere that greylag geese are not particularly tasty, but I wonder whether there is a use for them as a source of protein. For example, could they be used to feed salmon? Is that sort of thing being considered by the Government?

Or could they be used for pet food or indeed for human food at a time when we are desperate for sources of food? We need to get some answers to those questions. Presumably, the Orkney situation means that there is some kind of market but we do not know how much of a market there is yet.

I certainly agree with the comments that have been made.

I note that the SPICe briefing on the petition states:

“Scottish Natural Heritage is working on the development of a scheme to permit the limited sale of wild goose carcases”.

Why “the limited sale”? If the problem is as bad as Angus MacDonald says it is, and given the points that have been made, we should ask the minister to investigate whether the carcases can be used as a protein source—as Graeme Dey mentioned in relation to salmon and as the convener mentioned in relation to possible pet food products. Also, sale of the carcases would be another way of encouraging another business up there in order to provide employment and income.

Could there be an export market, in fact? You wonder whether the issue of getting rid of the deer—I keep saying deer, not geese. I have deer on the brain.

That was last week.

We are on the horns of a dilemma. We have to try to think about the costs that were incurred with eradication and, at the same time, about whether there is a possible income. Is there an export market, I wonder?

I think that the idea of writing to the minister is the obvious one—and it is the right idea. I wonder whether there is anybody else we should write to at this stage—the obvious answer in this context might be the councils concerned. They will no doubt have a view on it and might, on the timetable that we are working to, be able to express that view to us. That would simply mean that we got an input from them sooner rather than later—otherwise we might just have to write to the councils afterwards.

The mention of deer may have been a Freudian slip, convener. I pointed out a couple of weeks ago that there could be an increased market for venison in various areas. I checked with my local butcher, who does not sell venison. The point that I was making then—I will be brief—was that developing that product and other products throughout Scotland could lead to an increased market and an increase in jobs.

Richard Lochhead is the champion of Scottish food and I would encourage ministers to explore what other foods we can market throughout Scotland and export in order to provide jobs and income.

I will highlight the national goose management review from 2010. The following statement from that review has been drawn to our attention:

“the risk remains that, without intervention to control increasing damage, social costs could rise very substantially without any compensating public benefits”.

It is a very important issue.

Once, we had a goose for Christmas—it was in France but that is part of the European Union. I am afraid that I do not know what type of goose it was, but it was delicious so there is a possibility there. That is just anecdotal.

I also highlight that although a lot of the populations are increasing—with considerable damage to local economies—some are declining. The Greenland white-fronted goose has been highlighted as one of the declining populations. We also need to put that into the equation in our considerations.

Indeed. The pink-foot geese that nest in my area—in Caithness in particular—are very protected; they gather in very protected areas. However, the point is that the vast majority of geese are greylag geese, which is what the major problem is about—we do differentiate in that regard.

Claudia Beamish is quite right. There are geese and there are geese, obviously, and we would not want to cull geese that need to be supported.

Another market for geese, where they are a problem, is of course the wildfowling market. The economy could be helped by allowing some of that sport to take place—in a controlled manner, of course.

11:15

Yes, indeed. We can make that one of our suggestions. We have quite a range of suggestions that we can put in the letter. Perhaps Angus MacDonald wants to sum up from the Public Petitions Committee side?

I have some more suggestions about bodies that we could contact to see what they have to say—the Crofting Commission, the Scottish Crofting Federation, which submitted the petition in the first place, and possibly the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

We will look at forward business on 11 December. I suggest that we could request responses, if at all possible, ahead of that meeting to inform our deliberations about future business. I recognise that the schedule is tight but it would allow us to take a look at the issue and consider whether there is more that we might want to do on the subject.

No doubt there will be a meeting of the cross-party group on crofting coming round soon, apart from anything else. There is a meeting of the cross-party group on rural policy this week, I think, so there might well be places where we can speak to stakeholders about the issue.

A copy of the letter to the minister could probably go to other organisations as well if the letter covers the points that Graeme Dey raised. I think that we have sufficient bits and pieces of the members’ suggestions for us to try to be proactive on the issue. We can contact local authorities and also the crofting federation and so on.

I am conscious that there will be people watching the meeting even now and I do not think that we have mentioned the RSPB. I am sure that it would want to submit something else. It seems to me that if other folk want to send us a letter we are probably not going to do anything other than read it and welcome whatever information they can give us.

I would be very surprised if they did not.

Indeed.

Thank you for that. That is sufficient for us to deal with that issue.

At our next meeting, the committee will hold an evidence session with Scottish Government officials on the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 2003 Remedial Order 2014. The committee will also consider two Scottish statutory instruments.

I move the meeting into private session and ask for the public gallery to be cleared.

11:17 Meeting continued in private until 11:32.