THE reported comments from the Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) spokeswoman defending the granting of licences for culls ("Licences to cull endangered species alarms bird conservation group", The Herald, July 27) are disingenuous at best and avoid addressing the core issue.

I have been researching the biology of Greenland barnacle geese wintering in Islay since 1984. Islay supports around 60 per cent of the entire world population, so is of major international conservation importance. Over this time, I have watched the evolution of goose management schemes that helped protect the geese and compensate farmers for losses caused by the geese grazing their grassland. Although these included licences for farmers to shoot geese, as a last resort only, relatively small numbers were killed in this way.

In 2015 a new scheme was launched that, for the first time, introduced licences for the active culling of barnacle geese. For farmers with reseeded grass fields entering the scheme, it is compulsory to allow SNH marksmen to shoot geese on these areas. The aim is to reduce the population from its current 42,000 to a target of 25-30,000 – by any definition this is clearly a cull. A total of 8,500 barnacle geese have been culled on Islay since 2015, with 3,600 in the winter of 2017-18 alone. Culling has become a key component of the current strategy, but has raised numerous issues about its effectiveness, scientific credibility and negative effects on existing conservation management.

Of particular concern from a scientific perspective is the population viability analysis that underpins the cull targets. It has a weak evidence base and is over-simplistic; but there are many other wider concerns including widescale disturbance, not only of the barnacle geese but also other species of conservation importance (including chough and Greenland white-fronted geese), displacement of the geese to other wintering sites exacerbating conflicts elsewhere, poor practice by the SNH marksmen (including using semi-automatic firearms and shooting at long distance into fleeing flocks) and animal welfare issues associated with “crippling losses” associated with the cull (birds injured and left to die) which in turn raise further issues associated with public perception by both locals and tourists.

In the light of this, SNH would do well to respond to the representations being made by conservation agencies such as the RSPB and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and remove the culling element from future Islay goose management. A better thought-out scheme with a stronger evidence base is much more likely to deliver a long-term sustainable and cost-effective solution.

Dr Steve Percival,

Ecology Consulting, Swallow Ridge Barn, Old Cassop, Durham.