SCOTLAND’S leading animal welfare charity used controversial methods to kill a harmless snake after mistaking it for one of the most dangerous reptiles in the world.
The Scottish SPCA is facing calls for an investigation after a timid tree snake was wrongly identified as a deadly green mamba and placed inside a freezer – against the charity’s own guidelines on good practice.
The creature was discovered last month on the UAL Bodewes cargo ship that had docked in Aberdeen after travelling from West Africa.
The Scottish SPCA was called out to rescue the reptile which was then taken to a rehoming centre under police escort.
Scottish SPCA chief superintendent Mike Flynn said: “The safety of our staff and the public is paramount and as such the snake was placed in a freezer where it passed away. Recent guidance issued on euthanising animals suggests that placing a reptile in a freezer is not the preferred method. However, in this instance freezing was considered the only safe option as any other method would have posed a significant risk to our staff.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article