ENVIRONMENT
Halt £16m scheme to kill Orkney stoats, urge insiders
Whistleblowers say the programme was underfunded and failed to trust expert advice
Stoats are a menace to the islands’ seabirds
JOHN DICKENS
A pioneering scheme to wipe out stoats from Orkney has been a flop, according to insiders. They said it was underfunded and had failed to heed expert advice.
Stoats first arrived on the archipelago 13 years ago and quickly became a menace to the islands’ globally important seabirds.
The £8 million Orkney Native Wildlife Project was launched in 2019 to trap and kill the invasive species. Three months ago the team announced it would need a further £8 million to finish the job, prompting people close to the project to speak out over fears of money being wasted.
They said the scheme had gone ahead despite warnings from experts that killing the stoats fast enough to annihilate them would require a budget almost three times
