 Welcome to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee's ninth meeting of 2019. Before we move to our first item on the agenda, can I remind everyone to switch off their mobile phones or put them on silent as they may affect the broadcasting system? The first item on the agenda is for the committee to decide whether to take agenda item 5 in private. Are we all agreed? We are. The second item on the agenda this morning is to take evidence in the Scottish Government's head of wildlife crime in Scotland 2017 annual report, and I'm delighted to welcome our guest this morning. We've got sector chief superintendent David McLaren, specialist crime division of Police Scotland morning, Sarah Shaw, head of wildlife and environmental crime unit morning, David Green, deputy head of specialist case work and head of Scottish fatalities investigation unit morning, and Mike Flynn, chief superintendent of the Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, good morning. I'll get straight into it. Controversial subject and it's good news in that the reports of wildlife crime seems to be coming down. For your views on what you think and what you believe has contributed to this 11 per cent reduction of wildlife crime since the last report, has there been a genuine decrease or has there been just a case of less reports? How can you figure that out? I think that when we look at percentage changes in such small numbers, sometimes having any sort of assessment of what the cause of that changes can be quite challenging at times. I think that there is most certainly a much wider awareness of wildlife crime issues across the country. A lot of the work that we do with partners highlights that there is a real feeling across the country that generally the public want to see a reduction in wildlife crime. You would hope that the work that we do in partnership around raising awareness and prevention work is having some effect. The only thing that I'll throw a bit of caution around about that is that the numbers are so small that any fluctuation is difficult to interpret in any great way. Have any other panel members got any thoughts on why we've seen that reduction? What's working? From our point of view, there has been a marked reduction in the amount of reports of illegal snaring compared to a good few years ago. Those numbers have gone down, it still occurs, but it's a lot less than it was previously. Numbers are still quite high with birds though, I noticed. What I would say about bird crime is that, while that is quite a significant number, in terms of protected species, the numbers are quite low. While it's in the region of about 50 crimes against birds in general, the numbers in relation to raptors being persecuted are quite low. That's clearly one of the main areas of focus for us as part of the raptor persecution delivery group. While that looks like a large number, in terms of protected species, the numbers are still quite low. I want to look at the statistics again. Are there any significant changes in how those numbers are being collated? Is there any change in the methodology at all since the last report? No, not at all. You may be aware that we have different recording systems around the country, but we have standard crime recording processes that we apply across Scotland. There has been no change around that since the last report in the year. As I said, the numbers are as they have been recorded in the years going by. You have highlighted some of the challenges already about presenting those statistics by the small numbers. Are there any other challenges around how you present those statistics? For example, if you look at a reduction of wildlife crime, there could be a bit of complacency that could creep in. Is it important to highlight where the numbers have not decreased as well as you would like? Is there an opportunity for you to mention that? We still have a long way to go. We do not want any wildlife crime. Absolutely. It is probably worth highlighting. The recorded crimes are still an awful lot of investigation goes in relation to suspected wildlife crimes that are reported to us. Although those cases look fairly small numbers, because of that awareness raising, I think that we have been successful over the years in raising the profile of wildlife crime. We do have a lot more cases that are reported to us as suspected wildlife crimes and a lot of work with our partners. In terms of that complacency, I would say that we are going far the other way and that the work that we do with our partners where we suspect a crime quite often. Even in those early stages where we are, we are absolutely certain that our crime has been committed. A level of investigation is such that, should we get further down the line, for example, with a bird poison or content that we have captured the basics at the early stages, quite often that is happening in cases where there is no crime. I guess that you have hit upon the fact that evidencing is complicated. I would not say that it is complicated, just challenging, because of the nature of the crimes. Most occur in fairly rural locations where there are very little in the way of witnesses. If you look at conventional crime investigations where nowadays CCTVs, forensics, telecoms communications data all add to building a case, whereas in a lot of wildlife crimes those opportunities do not exist. Quite often we are relying on those relationships that we have with landowners and land users in the areas where those crimes are committed. That is where that partnership is working. Peace is really important so that we are able to make those connections so that when we do get a wildlife crime reported it gives us the best opportunity to realise opportunities. My colleagues are going to dig a little deeper. John Scott. Thank you. Just to finish off that question, would you welcome the reductions that seem to me like good news? Hasn't necessarily been said that this is good news or even implied that I think it's good news, do you? Absolutely. I think that any reduction in any type of crime is exactly the prevention at the key of what we are trying to do across the whole wildlife crime piece. It's shown as a reduction, as excellent. You would hope that we have some influence over that and that we've been successful around reducing wildlife crime. I take it back to the earlier point. You're always a bit wary of complacency around this. I'm not necessarily high-fiving each other that there's been a reduction when we know that there's still wildlife crime going on and that there's still a significant challenge there, particularly in cases where it's difficult to establish whether or not a crime has occurred. We still have a lot of wildlife crime investigations on-going, so I absolutely welcome it, but there's certainly no complacency around that. Before we move on to your line of questions, Finlay, you wanted to come in briefly. I'll bring in later, in regard to this particular species. Bats have been the bats champion for the Parliament. You touched on the number of crimes committed. If we look at the wildlife crime report, it doesn't necessarily give an accurate assessment of the crime's committee, but it only reports on confirmed offences. For example, there was a marked increase in the number of investigations into allegations of bat crime. I think that it went up fourfold with 28 allegations of bat crime. However, there's no mention of bat crime at all in the wildlife report. Can you explain why there's this discrepancy? In terms of a dedicated area in the report in relation to bat crime, I could be wrong on this, but my understanding is that bats come under the specific legislation for other wildlife types, in relation to bats that come under general categorisation, so they'll be categorised generally rather than as a specific species. Although it's something that I'd be quite happy to take away and double-check that, but that's my understanding of that discrepancy. I think that it's come up before in relation to bats. The report suggests that even though it's in separate other wildlife crimes, it suggests that there's no bat offences. However, there were 27 incidents reported. Are we missing out on some data so that we're not actually getting a trail effect reflection? No, so an incident may be somebody coming to us to say they suspect a crime, so it's that investigation that we carry out to establish whether or not a crime has occurred, so that would be an incident in the first instance when it's reported to us. But actually getting to that threshold of where we can identify a crime has taken place for the reporting period, we've not reached that threshold, hence the discrepancy between the two numbers. John. Thank you, convener, and I should declare an interest as a farmer, of course. Can I ask you about the special constables, and last year you announced their introduction and essentially how has that worked out, and how have the special, the rural and wildlife crime special constables roles operated in practice, and is the pilot project on-going? Yes, the pilot project continues. We will be up to the full year at the start of April, so there's an evaluation going towards the end of this month. There was a six-month evaluation that took place looking at the activity, the number of deployments for the special constables within the national park, the number of deployments in partnership with the park rangers, and looking at the kind of work that they were getting involved in. I think it's fair to say, and at the last raptor persecution delivery group meeting, the Cairngorn national park lead was there, and the general feeling, and it came out of the initial evaluation, is that whilst the special constables are well deployed within the park, that much of the activity that they undertake is more engagement work with park users, certainly working with or engaging with land owners, users in the national park. In terms of actually being involved in wildlife crime investigation, it was fairly minimal, it has to be said. The park loves to have the opportunity to feed into that evaluation at the end of the month. The feeling was that, while it's a very positive thing for engaging with the community within the park, in terms of tackling wildlife crime, it was difficult to really see that there were any great benefits from it. Although the caveat to that is that prevention is a really difficult thing to measure, but as I say, we'll see come the evaluation at the end of the month, we'll see where we go with that one. When the deployment of special constables was announced, it was announced as part of a package of measures to tackle primarily raptor persecution. Are you saying that these officers have not been successful in identifying areas where raptor persecution has been taking place, and it's not been useful in terms of bringing forward cases, evidence for cases that could then lead to prosecution? Well, I think it's important that we let the full evaluation take its course and we'll actually see what the impact on crime within the national park has been over the last year. I think it's fair to say that, before the deployment of the special constables in the park, the numbers of wildlife crime within the park were actually weren't significant. As I say, as part of that evaluation, we'll be looking at what intelligence has been gathered by the special constables where they've been deployed, the engagement with different landowners, different land users within the park. As I say, prevention is a really difficult thing to measure. I think that the measure of a comparison, I guess, between the last year and the deployments within the park and the years before that. You're absolutely right that the special constable project is part of a much wider Police Scotland and partners response to raptor persecution all over Scotland, not just within the national park. There are challenges brought about by the scale of the national park. Given the timescales we had to deploy the special constables to the park, most of them were already existing special constables who lived out with the park area. To get them deployed, they have to get from their home address into the park, get them teamed up with either a ranger or another special constable. The park itself is not the most hospitable of places that has to be said for travelling around, particularly during the winter months. I look forward to getting that evaluation to assess what the success and challenges of the deployment has been over the last year. Do you have a knowledge and understanding of what proportion of special constables' role is dedicated to wildlife crime compared to rural crime? Well, I think that if you're investigating or if you're objective to be in the national park is to tackle wildlife crime, I think that it's a given that any police officer or a special constable also have wider responsibilities in terms of guard-watching and patrol in that area. Personally, I don't see the value in separating the two. These are police patrols in the area where we have both rural crime and wildlife crime. As I said, the figures around the level of deployments that we've had within the park will be made clear in the evaluation, but I think that it's twofold, to be honest with you. Notwithstanding, and before the evaluation is complete, has Police Scotland formed any views on the success of the pilot and how it could be rolled out in other areas, or learned any other lessons that you'd like to share with the committee at this stage? I appreciate you all. The proper evaluation will be presented in due course. For me, I would rather wait and see what that evaluation is. Will there be learning? I think absolutely. Wherever we have a deployment for a specific crime prevention or crime enforcement purpose, and there's always learning with these types of initiatives that will be rolled out across the country, as I say, it would be folly of me to make any assessment until we get that evaluation, to be honest with you, and get a feeling for how successful the pilot's been. You're positive about it, we hope. Absolutely. We talk often about the challenges of wildlife crime. We're keen to look at different ways of doing our business to see what's successful and what's not successful. Special constables, like all resources we have, are a finite resource that we need to make sure that we're putting them in the right places to be effective, and I suppose in relation to wildlife crime that's no different at all, and once we get that evaluation we'll be able to assess that. How much can be inferred from regional figures presented in the report, for example the fact that the Highlands and Islands recorded the highest number of wildlife crime offences? To what extent do you think this is influenced by the distribution of resources, for example? It's the biggest geographical area in the country, so it figures that if wildlife crime is occurring within rural locations then the largest rural location we have in the country will have the highest figures. In terms of deployment, on a monthly basis we look at the figures. We have wildlife crime officers within each of our divisions, and we make sure that it lays in with the national wildlife crime unit as well in terms of intelligence or analytical product that we're making sure we deploy our officers in the right places at the right times as much as possible. Finally, on resources, how is resourcing currently affecting the ability of Police Scotland and the SSPCA to investigate and prevent wildlife crime? What is the current resourcing picture beyond the pilot project? We have dedicated officers within each of our divisions, but it's fair to say that an officer or a part-time officer within a division on their own isn't going to make a massive difference. I think that, in a lot of respects, they are the kind of divisional experts, if you like, in terms of providing advice and guidance, support, etc. for investigations, but over the last year we've run a number of courses where we're bringing in not just local community cops, as you might expect, but more specialist officers so they have an understanding of wildlife crime so that they may bring some of their skills to the investigations that we are undertaking, particularly within our control room. There's a lot of training going on there to make sure that when call handlers are taking calls about potential wildlife crimes, they're able to identify really early where there might be opportunities to make sure we get officers deployed as quick as we can and to identify that there's a wildlife crime being reported to them or a potential crime being reported to them in the first instance. You said that most of the special constables were redeployments from elsewhere. Did the initiative bring in new special constables because of their particular interest in wildlife crime? The pilot started before I was in post, so the whole process around how those special constables were identified, I'm not completely sure, but I can certainly double check that for you and get back to you. What I would say is that, country-wide, we are constantly looking to increase our numbers of special constables, a really valuable resource for us, and I think that through that engagement within the national park, that's something that we've considered at the time that having special constables within the national park, engaging with people who are working or using the park, might encourage others to come forward and get involved in that. Again, it's part of that evaluation that was something that we can perhaps cover to see whether or not there have been any from within the park. I'm an enthusiast personally because I used to have staff who worked for me in my previous life who were special constables and could see the value, so I encourage you to see the opportunity of the special role that there is in this area. The pilot is around it. You said that you may have some questions, you're fine. Claudio Bromish. Thank you, convener. Good morning to you all. Could I turn the focus specifically to prosecution and sentencing? Some of this has been touched on already in terms of the difficulties of finding evidence, and we'll come to that as well later. What would any of you see as the key challenges and barriers to achieving higher numbers of prosecutions for wildlife crime? Through the convener, I don't know who would want to come to that first. By a life crime, I think that David has already picked on it. There's a lot more reported where you can identify a crime but you cannot identify a suspect up to the statutory requirements required by the Crown Office. I know that the statistics have gone down, but there are more offences. There are no badger offences listed for the year that they were talking about, but there have been badgers involved but it's not taken under the Badgers Act. It's under the Animal Health and Welfare Act because it's dogs that have been used and it's been shown in evidence that the injuries were received from badgers. It's the detection and just the very nature of wildlife crime, as David has already highlighted. It's not routine that's normally caught on CCTV or done in front of plenty of witnesses. From yourself, Detective Chief Superintendent, is there a comment? I think that I covered it on. It's reaching that threshold. It's worth saying that when we have significant investigations, we engage with Crown on a regular basis to make sure that it's not a case of us dropping a report on their deaths to say that we've done as much as we can. There's that constant dialogue to make sure that, as we work through a case, we'll have an understanding of where that threshold might be. That, undoubtedly, is a challenge. It's the remote nature of most of these crimes. It makes it very difficult to gather that evidence. In relation to vicarious liability, the RSPB in its report, Illegal Killing of Birds of Prey in Scotland 2015-17, has said that, we've become aware in the spring of 2017 that a vicarious liability prosecution, following the earlier conviction of a gamekeeper for killing a buzzard, was being dropped after 14 previous court hearings as part of the Crown Council considered it. It was not in the public interest to continue the case to trial. Could you make any comments on that? That was a particular case that Crown Council considered taking it into account, the vaccine circumstances of that particular case. The Crown is under a duty to keep cases under review, not only to review evidence, not just when a case is found. In that particular case, the evidence was reviewed by Crown Council in keeping with that duty, and Crown Council decided that it was no longer in the public interest to continue with that prosecution. Your report also shows that only one wildlife crime conviction resulted in a custodial sentence. Could I seek views on whether any of you think that the current sentencing is providing a sufficient deterrent to those engaged in wildlife crime in Scotland? I had to come in here and say that it would be quite inappropriate for the Crown Office to make any such comment. Sentencing is entirely a matter for the courts and, of course, for Parliament in setting out the levels that can be imposed by judges. Those are entirely matters out with our control, and it would be inappropriate for us to comment. I respect that comment. Could anybody else comment on the deterrent aspect of the levels of sentencing and the lack of custodial sentences? The gentleman next to me is entirely up to the court under the individual circumstances, but, publicly, there is quite often an outcry that the sentences do not appear to be shown to have any great deterrent factor. Anybody else? Are you able to come and talk? It is the same position as David. It is inappropriate for us to comment on sentencing. What I would say anecdotally from individuals who are caught, they are well aware of the sentencing and what follows at court if they are found guilty. It is difficult to say whether it is a deterrent or not, and I guess that it will be on a case-by-case basis as well. Does the Crown Office respond to the concerns that have been raised? They are not sufficiently transparent in communicating the rationale for their decision making while I have crime cases. I know that the Scottish Badgers have said that they work positively with the police. However, there have been a significant number of incidents. I think that 80 were reported during that time frame and that they are not clear always why things have not been taken forward. I think that it is helpful to know that and RSPB have also highlighted that. I am wondering if you can comment on that. I am not saying that this is the case but I would appreciate any comment. Communications, how do they work? Wildlife and environmental crime units work very closely with partner agencies, Police Scotland, SSPCA, on occasion with RSPB and Scottish Badgers. We would meet them when that is appropriate. In this particular year, there are no offences relating to badgers. The report does not show the specific numbers of cases reported to COPFS due to the suspicion of data in the report. However, I have not been aware of any particular issue taken with any cases reported to COPFS by Scottish Badgers. Certainly in the past, when there have been concerns, there has been an approach to the team and we have met them and had a useful discussion with them. That liais and extends to Police Scotland as well. I am not aware if there is a particular issue that you are seeking to address. I have very specifically addressed it. I have said that Scottish Badgers has a concern that there were 80 incidents and they are not aware of the reasons for not taking forward to prosecution. I appreciate that taking forward to prosecution is a challenge. The point that I am making is that perhaps you could make a commitment today or consider making a commitment that you would check with those groups who are NGOs and others that you do work with. Indeed, members of the public might report a crime to ensure that the response to their reporting of incidents is followed through. The COPFS can only consider prosecution when a matter is reported to COPFS. There may well have been 80 incidents notified to Scottish Badgers in various ways, but that does not mean that COPFS has received 80 reports in relation to badger crime. Every report that is received by COPFS in relation to wildlife crime and indeed any offence is considered carefully and we consider whether there is sufficient evidence and whether it is in the public interest to raise a prosecution or to take alternative action. That is not what I am saying. I am sorry if I am not being clear. What I am saying is simply that two organisations have highlighted to the committee that they are not necessarily always getting the feedback on the incidents that they report. I am not in any way criticising whether they go forward to prosecution. I am simply saying could you kindly look at that with the groups that you are working with for the future? I think that it is fair to say that we would be more than happy to have those discussions, but the total number of reports that we received of all crime was 94. If they are aware of 80 cases, they may well be cases that Police Scotland and others are investigating, but those reports have not made it to Crown Office. If we do not know about it, we cannot comment and we would not be able to tell the partner agency anything about it because it is not known to us. If they have specific concerns about a specific matter that has been reported to Crown Office, then my team will be more than happy to discuss the particulars of that with them. I appreciate that. That was not the point that it was reporting to the police. I want to get a commitment, please. My point that I was going to make there is that there is a real distinction between incidents and crimes. In relation to incidents, we have good work in relations with Scottish Badgers. I meet with them personally a couple of times a year to iron out issues like that, whether there is poor communication or the feel that our response to crimes or incidents that have been reported to us. I can address them from a strategic level and feed that out across the country. That is something that I will personally take up with them. I think that the last meeting that I had with them was probably only six or seven weeks ago, but perhaps a little longer now. That certainly was not a number that I recognised that was being raised to me in terms of that lack of feedback, but if that is a criticism, that is something that I will catch up with around. Angus MacDonald wants to come in on the subject of badgers. Since we are discussing badgers at this point in the session, Mike Flynn mentioned them earlier on. We know that there were six offences relating to badger persecution recorded in 2016-17, compared to seven in 2015-16, and four of those were in relation to damage to a badger set. In statistics for numbers of wildlife cases received by COPFS in the report, information on badgers is absent with the explanation that it is a data suppressed. Can you explain what data suppressed means and how many out of the six offences relating to badger persecution recorded by Police Scotland in 2016-17 were referred to the Procurator Fiscal? Perhaps I have to get back to you on the finer detail of that. At p82 of the report, the first paragraph explains COPFS policy as regards data protection and explains why in some places in the report there has been suppression of data in line with our data protection responsibilities. We are not in a position to confirm the exact number, because in some cases the number is fewer than five, for example, as explained in that paragraph. In some cases it may have been necessary to apply a further suppression to a figure equal to or higher than five to prevent other suppressed data being deduced through subtraction, and that applies to all data being published by COPFS. According to our briefing, there were six offences relating to badger persecution in 2016-17. The report mentions that a five-year incident analysis of badger persecution was produced for the national wildlife crime unit, so can you provide any information on what this analysis showed and what influence it has had? That work that I talked about earlier on with the national wildlife crime unit, not just in relation to badger persecution, but right across the whole wildlife crime arena. The analytical products produced by them are really helpful for us in terms of identifying either problem areas, trends in different areas, new tactics or new techniques. We have more and more operandi used by those perpetrators, and this is something that is work in progress. It continues all the time, so very useful documents in terms of us identifying where we might have issues and then looking at plans around how we tackle that. On occasion, some crimes are not being recorded, even if there is enough evidence to prosecute, but there is a lack of public interest. This is true in some cases where there were three cases of bad persecution, but because there is a lack of intent of recklessness, they were not taken forward. Do we need recognition that there should be more data sharing and to make sure that the reports fit for purpose? In any way, we address what we have seen as underreporting of offences rather than crimes, because we are not actually getting a true picture. That is a quite specific point in relation to the disturbance of bat roosts. I think that the legislation is quite unhelpful, from an investigator's point of view and a Crown Office point of view as well, in that the act details right throughout about the willful act aspect of the rest of the act, but in relation to the disturbance that the willful part is missing. From a crime recording point of view, that men's rear or criminal intent in order for us to record a crime needs to be some level of evidence of that. In those cases, I met, as I said earlier, on there with the individual from the full name of the organisation. We have talked recently about how we can make representation to the Scottish crime recording board, so that we have more accurate recording around it. The issue is that what you have are potentially innocent members of the public who are going about their business, no willful or criminal intent, disturbing a bat roost and ultimately ending up with a crime recorded against their name, which does not seem like that proportionate either. It is trying to get a balance somewhere along there, so that we are able to actually record those instances but also not criminalise people for a completely innocent act, I guess. That is not to say that there are instances where there is criminal intent and it is really important that we investigate so that we can differentiate between the two. Certainly, some of the cases that have been raised recently are really difficult to identify. There is any criminal intent there, so we recognise it as an issue. It is probably an issue for us to take forward in terms of a tweak to the legislation, because in terms of all crime, there generally speaking has to be that criminal intent. Is there a recognition, then, that we should not just be recording crimes to get a true reflection on what is happening out there? We actually need to have a better way and a more transparent way of recording offences, because an offence, whether it is intended or not, is still an offence. If someone disturbs a bat roost or disturbs a badger, it is still an offence, it may not be a crime. Do we actually need more sharing of data between stakeholders to identify where there is an offence being committed? My own view is that there is a specific issue with that legislation that causes that anomaly. Across the board, in the fact that we record incidents where there is not necessarily crimes that have occurred, where we have carried out investigations because a suspected crime has occurred, it is difficult for me to see how we can be more transparent about how we are gathering information in relation to wildlife crime and reporting it. I think that that issue is a bit of an anomaly. My team and Police Scotland have discussed, and there does seem to be the particular regulation 391D. I cannot comment on the intention behind the drafting of the legislation, but certainly it is quite stark that there is no mention of the offence being deliberate or reckless when there is mention of that in the previous session. It seems that it is potentially intended to be crafted in that way. We certainly had discussion about the fact that, although there may not be an intent, it does appear that a crime has been committed on the face of the facts, and that probably qualifies for recording. Stuart Simpson, do you still have a question on this theme? Yes, I do, convener. I will also say that the rule of 5 is an office in national statistics restriction. All personal references below 5 and right across the board are not used. That is just an observation. My real question was just a very brief one, whether we could be pointed at any academic research on deterrence. I think that it is generally thought by me, if by no one else, that deterrence is about being caught, not about the sentence thereafter. I wondered if there was anywhere that we could get any sense of whether that thing that I have picked up at some point in my life is correct, incorrect or it is something else altogether. Anybody able to help? I think that, as a starting point, we are keen that anything that can assist us in the way that we tackle wildlife crime, get a better understanding of individuals that are involved in wildlife crime, we would welcome that. If there is something from an academic point of view that can assist, then we will take that on board. I would say that we are talking about wide-ranging different types of crime, different species, different areas of the country and very few numbers. To get any meaningful feedback of those numbers, not many people caught. To try and get any meaningful data set for that would be a challenge, but more than willing to take that on board. I would like to move on to the issue, which probably leads quite well on from the difficulties around prosecution, about video surveillance. Well-recorded issues around that. Can you summarise any developments that have been made in the area of the admissibility of covert video surveillance since the particular case that we had where it was not admitted into evidence? I am not aware of any particular developments in the law following those cases. I will pick up on RSPB Scotland. We have said that the decision about admissibility of video footage placed more emphasis on the perceived irregularity in obtaining evidence than on the criminal offence. How would you respond to that? From an investigator's point of view, we have video evidence regularly brought to us. It is something that we share with Crown and there are quite often discussions about the admissibility of that evidence. It is a much wider issue about human rights and the legislation that controls the deployment of covert tactics in any investigation. It is quite tight legislation that requires, I think that it has been discussed at this committee before, the threshold required in terms of proportionality and necessity around the deployment of covert video recording given the intrusive nature of it. From a police point of view in terms of ourselves deploying covert video recording in an intrusive nature, my experience over the years in terms of wildlife crime is that we have never met that threshold in terms of the serious crime aspect but also in terms of that proportionality. As I say, often the video footage that comes to us comes from other organisations who have recorded it and quite often the focus is the intent through which that footage was recorded. If it is recorded for the purposes of monitoring or assessing behaviour innocently in a wildlife environment, then it would be for the court to decide whether or not that would be admissible. Clearly, the focus deployment of video recording equipment experiences has shown that that is more often than not being admissible. The policy review, and I guess I want to ask you the recommendations around admissibility and enabling the admissibility of video evidence. I guess that comes back to my first question about if there have been any developments or indeed any guidance for people wanting to assist you all in identifying wildlife crime around war. What is admissible and what isn't? Well-meaning people like RSPB who want to flag up instances of wildlife crime in order to help your investigation and to bring people to prosecution. What guidance would you give them in ensuring that their video evidence is not going to be thrown out? We work closely with different organisations who are involved in investigation of wildlife crime or support investigation of wildlife crime. This is not a new issue, it is an issue that has been kicking about for a number of years. We work closely with RSPB, SSPCA, and Mike will hopefully support me here in saying that our partners are quite clear on the challenges around the use of video recording equipment on private land. In terms of that guidance, we do work closely. Mike will come in here, but I don't think that there is any ambiguity around the challenges that exist around video recording. I can only remember one recent case where video evidence was used in the request of the landowner whose livestock was being targeted and getting snared, so that was admissible because it was with the landowner's permission. I just wanted to explore the potential distinction between video evidence that can be used to inform an investigation and video evidence that can be used as part of a prosecution. Is that a distinction that it is proper to make? In other words, although video evidence may not have the evidential trail that makes it something that can be relied on in prosecution, is it something that the investigator can use to establish the questions that the investigator may therefore be asking in trying to get evidence? Is that a proper distinction that I am making? Yes, I think so. Any video evidence, whether it is admissible or not, would be used as intelligence in an investigation, so any information that comes from that. Again, we would have to be really careful about the provenance of that video evidence and the investigative work that follows directly from that. As I say, any evidence that is shared with us would take that on board with discussions with Crown around the admissibility of it, but it is always intelligence. I would agree with that. I have a lot of quite a few of the cases that we get now. The first one was the back case in a pub in Aberdeen where we were given CCTV of the guy hitting the back with a pool cue. The video was not used as evidence, but we found the back witnesses, so there was all the corroboration that kicked off. There is quite a few in the puppy trade. It is emanating from videos on Facebook. Exactly as David says, that starts off the investigation and does not conclude it, but it gives you the information to work on. It is probably more of a step to more robust evidence being collected rather than the smoking gun itself. I understand that. We move on to questions from Mark Ruskell. I would like to move to a topic that you will be aware was described by Donald Jure as Scotland's shame, and that is the persecution of birds of prey. In this report, which relates to previous year's 1617, the cabinet secretary does underline the point that this probably does not capture the extent of raptor persecution in Scotland, given particularly the fact that the satellite tagging work has been done. I wanted to ask you, and perhaps if each member of the panel could answer this, I appreciate that you will answer it in a way that is most appropriate to your duties and responsibilities. I can ask you about what you see as the top challenge around prevention, detection and prosecution of crimes involving birds of prey. What are you doing to ensure greater success? Perhaps we might start with Mike Flynn and then work across the panel on that. The same is the case with Police Scotland. We can only respond to information that is received. You have seen the amount of birds that the scientists have said are poisoned. Unless they can prove that it was an inadvertent poison that has been legally laid like an agricultural thing, then you have got an offence here. It is detecting who the person is responsible for, so greater public awareness. The amount of people that are calling on wildlife crime to ourselves and the police is higher than it has ever been, because it is quite well known that there are concerns out there. The difficulty is already alluded to, which is that these offences occur in places where they are not necessarily observed in remote areas. It is the gaining and gathering of that evidence that is a problem. As Mike has just mentioned, you can find that you have raptors that have been poisoned, where they were poisoned, where they were found or potentially many, many miles away. All those things are challenges to us, and we will do whatever we can, working with partners to get sufficient evidence and, in all cases, where it is possible to do so, whether there is sufficient evidence, we will take proceedings, because that is what we do. We have stated before that we are committed to tackling wildlife crime, and in particular raptor persecution. It is a matter that we take very seriously. We have stated to the committee before, in correspondence, that there is a very strong presumption in favour of prosecution, in cases reported to us where there is sufficient admissible evidence and it is in the public interest to raise a prosecution, and where we can, we will. I chair the raptor priority group. That group is working with a host of different partners around the table. It is quite a challenging partnership environment. It is fair to say that it is probably one of the most challenging partnership environments that I have worked in from a policing point of view. You have two sides of a table, who are at completely different ends of the spectrum in terms of their values around conservationists and those involved in the game industry. I guess that our focus, in terms of everyone working together, is around the whole prevention and enforcement intelligence side of things. Whether that is initiatives to gather intelligence, whether it is initiatives around prevention, I sit at that table feeling that I have the full support in pursuit of the crime reduction prevention investigation aspect of things. Lots of work is going on, but, as others have alluded to, it is a real challenge given the nature of the crime often. In terms of the intelligence then and gathering the intelligence, when this committee last looked at the previous wildlife crime report and we took evidence on this, we discussed the issue of the scientific data. This report mentions a bird of prey persecution maps. We are aware that there are other forms of intelligence on population, which can point to where persecution is most likely happening. Can you describe then, one year on, from our last session on this, how you are now using that data, particularly in light of the work on satellite tagging, to really drill down where this illegal activity is taking place? I think it is quite clear that there is a legal activity taking place. It is quite clear from that. There is no other reason why these birds are disappearing. There is no other reason why these satellite tags are stopping working in all probability. How are you using that data, hard ecological population data, to drill down and stop these criminals? That data is useful in terms of intelligence. As I said earlier, any intelligence or information that we could use to assess problem areas and trends in different areas, then absolutely take that on board and use it. I think the point that you make there around about satellite tags in terms of their reliability. I think that that is improving. It has not always been the case that there is that strong reliability around about satellite tags. I know that over the last six months to a year there have been instances where we have tags, birds that have disappeared, and then due to issues with the tag reappeared, which is always a challenge for us. We need to be absolutely certain that a crime has taken place before we can record a crime, as opposed to an all probability of crime taking place. That information is not used as intelligence to support further investigative work or applying for warrants to crown or any other activity that we want to undertake. In the last 12 months, since police were last at this committee, what has changed in terms of the way that you are using that population data? We have had more emphasis, a commitment the last time you came here, your predecessor came here, to use that data more in your intelligence-led policing. What has changed? How does that work with your special constables and information on the ground? It is clear what you are saying is that there is, in many communities, a wall of silence and a murder over this evidence. You have to work around that and try to use this data to drill it down. What has changed on the ground in the past 12 months? The use of that data to identify problem areas so that when we have crimes that we know that are crimes have been committed, that data and that information are supportive of our investigation. To talk about species population, I completely understand and I take on board the point. On one hand, we have reports that, without being a wildlife expert, population decline is absolutely due to persecution. On the other hand, we know that certain species have issues with areas where we are trying to reintroduce them and that there are wider issues, whether it be climate or other challenges in that area. That is not always persecution. On an investigative point of view, we work with facts in terms of trying to gather evidence. Intelligence is really useful to support our investigations, but in terms of hard and fast facts that are actionable, then quite often that information is just supporting intelligence as opposed to something that we can use to go and get warrantry, for example. It is helpful, but not as black and white as it often presents. Is there a view from the SSPCA on that? I suppose that you are quite constrained in terms of what you can and can't do at present. A lot of the evidence that has come out from the scientific wouldn't kick off any investigation for us. There are certain areas where we know things are going on, but so do the policing where evidence can be found and it will be reported. Just to give a reassurance, when we have satellite tag birds disappear, that's not dealt with as an investigation to begin with. We will investigate that. There was a case three or four weeks ago, down in the Borders, where Golden Eagle went missing. We deployed a team down there with a search and recovery dog. We recovered the bird. Initial indications are that the bird died of natural causes. No crime there, but a fair amount of police activity around trying to identify whether or not a crime has occurred. I suppose that it's just to give that reassurance that that's not a one-off. If partners come to us and say that we've got a protected species that's disappeared, the tag that was last registered in X, Y or Z area, then we will deploy and search with partners in that area where appropriate engage with the landowner. Can I explore this a bit further? In my region of South Scotland, there's an area—I'm not going to name it a state—it wouldn't be appropriate, but Leadfields and Warnlockhead area, where for the last 20 years there's been significant reporting of wildlife crime, which appears to be pretty intractable. I wonder the degree to which you, as a force, with the help of SSPCA and all the partners and the public, are able to focus on these areas and to what degree you're able to deploy your—I appreciate it—limited forces to try and crack this, because it's gone on for far, far too long. It's difficult to speak about individual cases areas, but I think that it's a starting point for me. I'm giving it an example. Yes, absolutely. From a policing point of view, I've been an investigator all of my police service, and there is, I suppose, nothing that hurts more than criticism about the level of investigation or the efficiency of our investigations in any area of policing, if you like. I suppose, again, it's to give that reassurance that, where we have crimes reported to us and there are opportunities, we are seeking out every opportunity we possibly can to detect those offences. There are challenges that we've covered them today, but I think that anything that we can possibly do with our partners to obtain evidence so that we can report individuals to the Procurator Fiscal Service, we are absolutely taking those opportunities if we can. I'm interested in the reliability of those tags. I kind of, perhaps naively assumed that they were 100 per cent reliable. Can you just talk a little bit around that if they're not as reliable as I had assumed that they were? And also, would you like to talk a little bit about weather and climate change and the last year's particularly adverse winter weather conditions, which certainly affected farming, the beast from the east, did it affect the survivability of all wildlife? So, in terms of climate change and survivability of wildlife, not my bag, I'm afraid I'd have to ask someone else in relation to that, but yeah, in terms of reliability of tags, I think it's fair to say as technology is improving, the quality of the devices that have been used are absolutely, you know, a million miles on from where they were years ago, but there is still that margin of, you know, failure, if you like, where some tags do fail. They're out in the extremities for long periods of time and they do have issues. I've read the reports around about the reliability of them, but we see in a kind of operational environment, if you like, where we do have these tags failing, where the birds fall under, you know, I think going into a lot of the details. I think it's just fair to say, from an investigator's point of view, it's quite often difficult to hang your hat on, you know, a tags disappear, is it definitely persecution? Will it be in some of the occasions? I think I've no doubt that that's the case, but it's trying to differentiate between tag failure and persecution, real challenge. Mark, just to finish off this theme. Yeah, thanks, convener. I just want to very quickly go back on comments around vicarious liability, and I'm just wondering, particularly with the Crown Office, given some of the developments that we're anticipating with land reform, we're going to have a new public register in terms of controlling interests in land. Will that have any bearing on the ability to bring forward prosecutions under vicarious liability? Will it make it easier, effectively? It may well assist to identify the owner of a particular estate. It may facilitate obtaining evidence of that fact. I can't comment on the detail of the changes. I'm not cited on those, but yes, it may well assist. In particular, it extends beyond the owner to controlling interests, which may not be transparent. You're not cited on that. I'm not cited on the detail of the proposal, sorry. John Scott. Thank you very much, convener. I want to take you to the cites laws, if I may please, and just ask if Police Scotland has had discussions with the Scottish Government regarding how enforcement of cites laws may be impacted by a no deal Brexit. Quite a topical question today. That's something that we're monitoring closely. We're unclear at this time as to what changes may come about in terms of the movement of cites. It's something that we have on our radar. Once we have a clearer picture around about Brexit and what some of those controls may be, we'll adapt our processes as we go, but yes, certainly that engagement's on-going. A work in progress. Angus MacDonald, fresh water perl muscles, I believe? Yes, thanks, convener. We know that there's been some good work going on with tackling the issue of fresh water perl muscle extraction, including the perls in perl life plus project, which has established the river watch schemes. Can you provide some more information on the outcomes of Operation Caesar, which investigated the routes of sale of fresh water perl muscles and how those outcomes have been used or could be built on? I have to say that it's not an operation that I have sight on. It's something that I can certainly feed back to you, though. Okay. You have heard of it, though. I'm familiar with the details of the operation, but not on any great depth. I wouldn't be really comfortable talking in any detail about that. What I would say is that any operations that we have, any initiatives that we have, that learning that you're talking about is something that we pick up as a matter of routine shared across all the different wildlife crime areas, so that if there are learning opportunities, then we make sure that we realise them across the board. I can certainly get back to you on some of the finer detail around about that operation. That would be the most welcome. Now on to questions around poaching and coursing. We've got Stuart Stevenson. Basically, we've covered it, can we? Yes. Anything else, Finlay? You maybe had some questions, or are you quite satisfied? Well, I think that Mark was also going to ask, where does the figures for hunting with dogs or fox control using dogs come into this? In relation to cruelty we're using? The crimes committed involving dogs. Sorry, I'm not quite clear on the question. In the table there's information regarding hunting with dogs or whatever. There's been a marked decrease. Would that suggest that the introduction of the voluntary good practice guide is actually working? Again, it's difficult to say it, given the numbers. You would hope that that has had an influence there, but given the low numbers that we're talking about and you look at the fluctuations over the past years anyway, it's difficult to make any real assessment around the success of that or otherwise. Mark Ruskell, questions for the SSPCA? I wanted to explore the relationship between the working relationship between the SSPCA and the police and how that works in practice and perhaps some of the options that are available to government, particularly what he's mentioned about special constables and their enhanced role within one area of Scotland. Perhaps I could get a view from the SSPCA and Police Scotland about how that relationship works in practice and how perhaps that differs between the treatment of wildlife crime and the treatment of crimes where an animal is under the control of man under the legislation. I think it's fair to say that every day in life our inspectors work with members of Police Scotland. There have been a few occasions, particularly with wildlife incidents, that we don't know anything about until after the event. I'm not saying that we should if the police are dealing with it and the police are dealing with it, but I know that the Cabinet Secretary declined to give us powers under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, but we can still deal where a live animal or bird is concerned. As I said, we work constantly with the police. We couldn't do a lot of our job without the assistance from Police Scotland. In general, the co-operation between us is very good. There are certain areas where, like anything else, it could be better. I agree with that. We work with a lot of partners across wildlife crime. Given the number of crimes that we have reported to us in the way that those crimes are spread across the country, we don't always have officers dealing with them who have dealt with lots of wildlife crime before. I often have talked earlier about our wildlife crime liaison officers in the divisions providing that support. Do we always get it right in terms of engaging with partners? Not always, but I think that we've got a good work in relationships so that if we have issues, we have key individuals who can pick up the phone to each other and if there are any issues, we're able to iron them out. We welcome the support from the SSPCA, particularly around a lot of the intelligence information that it provides, much wider than just wildlife crime across serious and organised crime. It's a really valued partner in respect to that. It's like all partnership work. It's an evolving thing. It's not always plain sailing, but as long as we've got a shared objective in tackling and investigating wildlife crime, we'll always find our way. That's fair to make a comment there. We've got some of our special investigations working with intervention units and that is having some fantastic successes on animal welfare, but also some really good successes for Police Scotland. That's over a range of things. We're working very closely with Police Scotland in known badger, baiters and diggers. As I say, in many areas it works very well. Would Police Scotland have any concerns if the powers of the SSPCA were extended in relation to wildlife crime? Would that create any practical issues on the ground? I think that our submission, probably going back about 18 months or two years ago now, we're quite clear on our view that the powers sat with Police Scotland in terms of the investigation of crime and the SSPCA, a key partner in support of that. I don't think that that position has changed from our perspective just now. I'd have to see what those proposals and suggestions would be if they were any different from what was looked at previously. I'll take you back to what I said five minutes ago. I think that as long as we've got that kind of shared objective around about investigation and prevention, I think that it's a good work in relation. On the SSPCA's view, are you actively seeking more powers at the moment? In your discussions that you've had with Government, if there is a concern, what is it and what are you able to address or otherwise? To be honest with you, we were informed the same as anybody else when the Minister made her statement. We never got a real clear definition of what, if there was any issue, what that was. The original suggestion was made by Peter Peacock MSP during the Wayne Bill and we accepted that and we made the offer. That offer still stands. We did write to the Cabinet Secretary after the announcement that was made and he says, if in five years' time reviews show that he wants to review it, then our offer would still be on the table. But regardless of that, back to what David Sin is, my inspectors from Shetland and Innesran are there to assist the police with the current set-up in the legislation every day of the year. In terms of how your powers are governed, the governance issues around that, you obviously have substantial powers in relation to animal welfare more generally, particularly with domestic animals under the controlled man under the law. Are there issues about the modernisation of the governance of those powers that have been raised or are you fit for purpose to discharge those duties and extend them? I think that when you look at the rules of disclosure, the rules of prosecution are the same whether it is domestic animals or wild animals. I think that I did make the argument at the time regarding the police's statement that they have primacy over wildlife crime. If you take it to that extreme, the police have primacy over domestic dogs being starved, domestic dogs being kicked, it is still a crime. That was my argument. I have never understood why we can have the powers for all the domestic animals, which take up probably 95 per cent of our work and that includes livestock, not just dogs and cats and stuff. For the smallest part of our work, we were not regarded as fit for purpose, but it has never really changed during time. We did not go on a huff when the minister said that we could not get the powers. It has not changed, but we will still assist the police and we do need the police to assist us and we do not want that to change. What does that practically mean on the ground then in terms of the extent of your powers? If you see somebody hitting a horse, for example, in an enclosed paddock, then you also see the same person engaged in hitting a wild animal. Or destroying a fox or whatever in a humane way. Outside of that closed paddock area, what would be the difference in terms of what you can and what you cannot do? I am not entirely clear what the big difference is. That is quite easy. A lot of that is on the prevention side. Literally, if it is a badger in a snare and the badger is alive, we can deal with it because there is a genuine welfare issue and we are there to relieve the suffering. Whether that became a prosecution because our purpose was to protect the welfare is different. However, when you get under section 19, if we remove the badger that has been an illegal snare and we suspect that there is any other snare that could cause similar injuries, we have no right to retrieve that as evidence. We then have to withdraw from that, report it to the police and then hope that they have got the resources at that time. Again, we are talking in rural areas and you could be talking doing a half-day search to try and find illegal snares. We are nothing currently suffering, but potentially every snare can catch something. That is the main difference. If there is a live animal or bird involved, we will deal with it and secure the welfare of that animal and then by whatever means involved the police to try to take it further. How does the police respond in that situation? We will attend, depending on the location and the demand at that time. It is fair to say that it is part of our submission about the consideration of extended powers. In that very scenario, we submitted that. We hoped that SSP's powers could be extended to seize evidence so that everyone would know loss of evidence at that time. Michael, my view of it is that we are more often than not able to attend and I am not aware of cases where there has been a loss of evidence to do us but we have been unable to attend or there has been a delay. The only instances that I can think of are where we have reported to the police because we have not got the right to do anything and there has not been a constable available. There have been occasions where the police have bounced it back to us saying, we are kind of telling you that you are going to have to do it because we do not have them there but there have been instances in the past where it will be tasked to the wildlife officer who happens to be off for the weekend or whatever. Our concern with that is that there is still potential snares that are illegally said that could damage something. Is that actually happened? That has happened in the past but it is rare to be fair. There is an organisation, and I am proud to get a place for you on that as well. Where do you see where you can bring added value? Where can you make the biggest impact in tackling wildlife crime? Is it badgers? Is it bats? Is it raptors? Is it fox hunting with dogs? We have had some very good success with badger related as opposed to badger act crime where you have got the offence and you catch them on the set. The majority of the stuff that we get is bashed up dogs that further corroborative evidence shows like video films that that dog was injured because I filmed it fighting a badger. In every one of those cases we have worked very closely with Police Scotland because some of the people, actually most of the people involved in that are also regular clients of Police Scotland. Indeed. Police Scotland, do you have a view on where you see SSPC could bring value and additional value? We do bring value as do many of our partners that we investigate in partnership with. They all bring something different to the table that has to be said. Quite often it is that mixed resource whom we are carrying out searches or across all different types of wildlife crime. I would pick one particular area. As and when we are investigating a crime, depending on the circumstances, we will call upon different partners to support us where they can. I think they have been involved in wildlife crime on and off for probably five or six years now and where we have come from, where we were five or six years ago in terms of that partnership work in and our response to wildlife crime. We have a massive shift in terms of our improvement around it but it is like everything. There is still room for improvement. That partnership work will continue and hopefully we will continue to improve things. To what is more effective, special constables or the SSPCA or is that the wrong question because you need them all together? Comparing apples and pears, to be honest with you, I think that the SSPCA has a clear role in terms of their expertise in the function that they have. Special constables again, a different role altogether. In both police, we talked earlier on about the differentiation between wildlife crime and rural crime. As far as a special constable is concerned, crime is crime and there is a guard watching patrol. Who is the SSPCA? I have quite a narrow role in terms of crime. I think that we have to share and trusted support either way because people think that wildlife crime has a poison bird. Do you report the person? That is the case. The amount of work and investigation that has to carry on, if you take badgers for instance, by the time you get veterinary reports, pathology reports, the amount of items that are being seized by the police, mobile phones and stuff, that is hours and hours and hours of work. We share that on quite a regular basis. To be honest with you, I have known a lot of police constables or mainly middle management surgeons and inspectors who are delighted that we get involved because instead of taking a constable's time for two shifts that you have used them for an hour, we can get warrants in our own name. We have never served a warrant without the presence of the police. That is one thing that we have never, ever been denied. If we have the warrant there that has been issued by the Crown Office, the police will always assist us. I just wanted to pick up on the points that Mark has been making and Mike will remember. He referred to Peter Peacock in the third session of Parliament. Did you say that it was the Wayne bill when that evidence was not accepted then that was brought forward by Peter then? Remarkably, I was the deputy convener of that committee then and it was the same Cabinet Secretary, Roseanna Cunningham then as now. I also looked at the situation must be ten years ago. The development of special constables is indeed the way forward. The evidence thus far, although you are still awaiting evaluation, is indeed the way forward to further reduce wildlife and rural crime. Would you be happy with that position, enhancing the status quo? Without seeing the evaluation and having a real full understanding of the success or otherwise of that initiative, I would prefer to wait to see that. I come back to what I said earlier on that any opportunity or any suggestions around a better way to deploy our resources and a more effective way to have them in the right places at the right times is what the focus should be. As I said earlier on as well, our resources are finite. Lots and lots of different challenges and demands placed upon us. I think that we will wait to see what the evaluation is and then take that from there. I want to briefly ask you about drones. I have a particular constituency interest. Ithans in my constituency, with the largest seal-hallite site in the UK, is quite proud of that fact, as you can fully tell. There have been instances where drones have been disturbing the colonies. I tend to think that the majority of people using drones would be an intentional effect of what they were doing. Do you have any instances where drones have been used and you have been able to identify that they have been intentional in causing harm or distress to wild animals? No cases that I am aware of, but that is not to say that there have not been cases. Again, I think that it is on a case-by-case basis. If that is reported to us and there is a suggestion of criminality, then it is something that we would investigate. I think that you are absolutely right that the use of drones is something that has taken off to pardon the pun. There are lots and lots of people who are using them for a whole host of different reasons. I would imagine that monitoring and capturing a wildlife is one legitimate use, but people might not think through the consequences of that. Mike Fleer, have you had to come across anything that has been used for that very negative... I have heard of it or not proven anything different, but it was raised at the legislation and guidance subgroup of Paw, Professor Colin Reid. I know that has led to SNH looking into work to decide whether or not people would require a licence for certain purposes, because there have been bits that people are taking aerial photographs of birds of prey, and if you get too close to the nest you will disturb them. I know that the Scottish National Heritage is an active thing that it is looking at at the moment. No actual recorded criminality involving drones so far, but it is a case of... I am not aware of that. A final theme is John Scott on beavers. Police Scotland will be aware that an SSSI has been laid preparing for beavers to become a European protected species. Have you considered how unlicensed interventions, including unlicensed culling, will be approached in the initial period, or indeed thereafter, after the regulations come into force? I saw the news about that two or three weeks ago, and it is something that we plan to... It is work in progress again. We plan to sit down and just look at the implications of that, what the legislation will look like, and I guess, like all wildlife crime, look to get a partnership approach to tackling any issues that come about through that. Do you see any particular challenges around that type of enforcement that is envidaged or an extra workload, or do you see that developing? I think that there are challenges right across the whole wildlife crime arena and another one. I think that with the approach that we have to other types of wildlife crime, I think that are working well, and I can see no reason why that wouldn't replicate across to any issues with beavers. I think that that is all our questions for today. I want to thank you very much for spending your time with us and giving us the answers that you have. I am going to suspend this meeting for five minutes just to allow our changing witnesses to be here. The third item on the agenda is to hear evidence on the conservation of salmon, Scotland amendment regulations 2019. I would like to welcome to our panel Simon Dryden, the policy team leader for salmon and recreational fisheries. Keith Mayn, policy manager for salmon and recreational fisheries, Maureen Scotland. Good morning. Dr John Armstrong directs for freshwater fisheries laboratory, Maureen Scotland Science. Good morning to all. I think that that is an opening question. I would just like to ask you what the concerns were that were raised in the consultation on the 2019 regulations, and if you can give me an idea of how they have been addressed. The consultation that we ran between October and November last year, we had this year 39 individuals coming back with representations, which was significantly lower than the consultation previous year, for all sorts of reasons probably. The concerns were quite balanced actually. There were a number of people who came back to us and were concerned that the river gradings individually were too low, and one or two of those were rivers who had come to us before. We have written to people and explained that, although the assessment methodology has moved on quite significantly in the 12 months since we were last here and we have made significant changes, our assessment is still the fact that the rivers in question are below their conservation status and we still feel that it is not sustainable to allow people to kill and retain salmon, although fishing continues on those rivers. We had almost exactly the same number of people who came to us and said, we actually think that you have graded our river too highly. There might be all sorts of reasons for that. One or two people had said to me in discussions that they were concerned that it gave an impression that good times were back and lots of salmon had come back again. We have been very clear ever since the cabinet secretary launched the consultation in October and throughout our messaging and we will continue to be so. That is not the case. There is a continuing downward trend in salmon returning to Scottish waters and that is quite a steady decline at the moment. There are all sorts of things that we are doing to try to address that and I am sure that Simon and John will talk about that. We are very clear that, within the boundaries of the model that we have developed, we believe that we can allow a greater number of rivers this year to fish and to retain fish, but there have to be proper management arrangements in place. On the other hand, a few rivers have gone from what we grade 3, which is mandatory catch and release, to grade 2. We have made clear this year that grade 2, the first line of defence, is to say, keep promoting catch and release on those rivers. Indeed, in grade 1 rivers, where we think that exploitation is continuing to be sustainable, we always encourage people to catch and release as much as possible. In fact, year on year, over 90 per cent of all the fish caught are returned to the waters by anglers, which is helpful. There are then some individual cases that came in in the consultation. We have endeavoured to engage with everybody and everybody who wrote to us, although 39 individuals, whether they were single anglers or whether they were bored or whatever, we have written to them sometimes two or three times. We have had quite an exchange of correspondence. We have talked to them on the phone, we have met with one or two, we have a meeting later this week with the Loch Lomond angling. There is an improvement association that we engaged with last year on a number of issues. We are having a catch-up meeting with them this week, the 4th River's Trust next week, so it is part of an on-going engagement to say what are your concerns on the river. The general message was that people accepted that we had taken big steps in developing the model this year. There are still some people who think that fundamentally we have got it wrong and that adult modelling is not the right approach, but we are doing other things around that. On the whole, it was a split message this year that was a little odd. You mentioned that you had a lot less submissions this time. Do you think that that is part of that general acceptance that things have to be done? You can enjoy angling, but you have to release the fish afterwards. Is there a general change in attitudes towards that? To be honest, I would like to think that that is the case, but we have to bear in mind that last year we had 192 representations. More than half of those were from the Loch Lomond Association and they are members who mobilised and had a letter writing campaign. In pure numbers of people, we were down there. The Loch Lomond assessment this year, because of the way in which we have changed the assessment and recalculated egg targets, for example, means that Loch Lomond fishery people can retain fish again. Therefore, we have not had that letter writing campaign. In fact, we had one or two people saying, yes, thank you, we agree, and they stepped back. It is simply a case that people perhaps do not want to stir the pot if they think that this year they are not being forced to put all their fish back. They may be just wanting to keep their heads down a little bit. There will be something of that, I think. I am hoping that we also get the message across better. Simon Dryden? Yes, I think another part of the equation is that last season we successfully conducted some national electrofishing, so that is sampling juveniles. Some of the criticism from anglers is that our assessment at the moment is based on adult returns and they would like to see us taking into consideration an assessment of juvenile abundance in rivers. We have made substantive steps towards that. Nearly 800 sites were sampled last year. Whilst that was driven by local biologists, it did, in a lot of areas, involve local volunteers taking part in the process and had a lot of coverage on social media. I am hopeful that that has been a positive outcome. We are committed to reporting the output from that exercise by the end of this month. We are on track to do that and to share that paper with local biologists. John Scott? Thank you, convener. Good morning, gentlemen. The methodological changes between 2018 and 2019 assessments appear to indicate an improvement in the status of salmon in a variety of rivers, but that is apparently not the case. What are the practical implications of that? The different method of assessment, egg requirements, rivers and things like that? Yes. We have looked at some additional data so that the assessment is now based, where we are looking at, numbers of eggs required, is now based on Scottish data exclusively. Previously, we brought in data from various countries at the same latitude. Because we can now target our required estimates specifically on Scottish rivers, we get a more accurate, a much narrower band of what is required. It happens that we require fewer eggs than we thought we did with the previous information. That explains the uplift in the improvement I see. It does, but there is no real change because it is just a different way of measuring it. That is correct. If one uses that method retrospectively, one finds that there is a continuing decline in numbers of eggs being deposited by salmon generally. We need to be a bit cautious here. It looks as though rivers are in better condition because of the new methods, but nevertheless there is still a downward trend in numbers of salmon. I am just bleeding on from that. Why do you think the number of eggs that are deposited by salmon are in decline? It is because the numbers of salmon returning from sea are continuing to decline and the sizes of salmon coming back from sea are decreasing. Smaller fish have fewer eggs, so there are two factors that are contributing. I notice that the rivers in Ayrshire to be provokial for a moment, with the notable exception of the esteem Stinshire River, are all at grade 2 or worse. People in Ayrshire believe that some measure is affected by fish farming further out west and north as salmon make their route through these fish farms. It would seem, as a farmer myself, that the obstacles—for example, sea lice—will reduce the fertility in all probability of salmon. Therefore, it is leading to a reducing number of eggs affecting, in some measure, the fish numbers in the river. Is that a proposition that I am essentially making up as I go along? Does it make sense that this might affect one of the factors that will be affecting the reducing numbers of salmon in rivers? It is possible that sea lice will reduce the condition of adult salmon. A paper recently published hinting that. The actual degree of reduction in condition was quite small, so any impact on fecundity of high levels of sea lice on returning fish would be relatively small, probably. I would suggest that more work should be done on that, because certainly in other livestock, land-based livestock, as a farmer again, any of these, what's the word I'm looking for, things like lice and sheep or ticks or other animals, certainly take down condition and thereby reduce fertility. There's a lot of veterinary work around that in mammalian animals, so I'm just welcome to further look at that. I wanted to say that I've been having a lot of dialogue with the Ayrshire Rivers Trust. One of the major issues that they're seeking to contend with is diffuse pollution and sedimentation from the farmland. They've been doing a lot of good work on green bank engineering to shore up the river bank on riparian tree planting and on ffencing. Just this week I've been working with them, collaborating with them for a bid that they're putting into Scottish Natural Heritage to try and take advantage of the new biodiversity fund that was launched on 11 February. SNH are promoting bids of between £100,000 and £200,000 that need to be in by 5 April. I think Ayrshire Rivers Trust, I know they are going to put forward a bid with our support for work that will seek to progress the already good work that they have done with those three elements ffencing, riparian tree planting and green bank engineering. That's very helpful, thank you very much. Thank you, convener, and good morning to all. Can I just start by saying that two years ago, as those of you who were involved at that stage in all these issues, we'll know that there were a considerable number of very serious concerns by local groups, not just Loch Lomond. I think it needs to be recorded for the official report that these appear to be many less, and I think the granularity of the science has certainly helped with that, so I wanted to have that recorded. I would like to ask two quick questions in relation to the methodology changes. Two years ago, and I think last year as well, if I recall correctly, there were concerns about the development of the egg requirements. I understand that there are now 11 sites that are being assessed in relation to the egg targets, and I wonder if there are plans to increase those in view partly of the public confidence but also in terms of the verification of science throughout Scotland. Yes, where we can put in new fish counters, as is the hope going forward, that will give us opportunities to generate stop-recruitment relationships that are used to come up with the egg targets, so we should, as things roll forward, continually increase with the accuracy of the approach. In terms of the adult assessments, I understand that the updated methods remove the geographical component from the process, with the relationship between catch and salmon numbers being determined by month and flow conditions. Could you explain one of you, please, whoever it's appropriate to do so, in more detail the benefit of removing the geographical component to the returning number, because it isn't clear to me why the geographical area isn't considered along with the month and flow. Does this distort the overall picture or not? Can you explain to me and the committee as well, I'm a layperson for sure? Geographical area is still considered as a possible factor in the models, but it so happens, as more information has gone in, that it no longer comes out as a significant factor. Could you explain that for those who will be looking at the official report for reassurance? Could you explain why it's not regarded as significant? Well, that's an interesting question. It's probably a statistical issue in that when you have relatively few data, you can get spurious factors that come out as being significant, and as you get an increase in the availability of data, you get a more realistic assessment. I don't think there's a great reason beyond it's simply not, it doesn't show any effect that's worth considering. I'm sure that that'll be reassuring to people who wanted to know the answer to that. What you're saying is that the lack of data makes the findings statistically insignificant. Is that what you're saying in essence? One can be looking at a range of factors such as water flu, altitude, position in the country, and how that influences the efficiency or the efficiency with which anglers catch fish. What we're trying to do is to work out which of those factors are important ones that should be retained in an overall model. As we've put more data into the pot, we've found that basically the geographic position no longer is an important factor, which is perfectly reasonable. It's not obvious why it would be easier to catch a fish in the north than the south, but it so happens that in an earlier model, which was with less data, it came out as being significant, probably because the numbers were really rather low, and it just so happened that a couple of high ones in the north. I expect the skill of the fisherman is likely to be much more important than anything else. If that varies around the country, then it will come out in more. I'm just trying to get my head round how we've got to this point. My understanding is that this framework was brought in because of potential infraction proceedings in the European Union because of the conservation status of the salmon. This isn't about the status of angling associations, it's about the status of the salmon. That was the original driver, and that's why we have the system in place now. It seems very counterintuitive to me that you're proposing increasing the river gradings to allow the catch and kill of salmon at a time when the conservation status is declining, unfortunately, rather than improving. To me, it seems to fly in the face of the precautionary principle. Are you not concerned that the European Union may look at this again and say, I see that you have a management framework in place, but the decisions that are being made are not precautionary and the conservation status of this species is failing? Start on that, please. With the wild sector, I think it's important to say that we have identified 12 groups of pressures which are impacting salmon. We want to approach, we want to decide to mitigate and address all of those pressures. Focusing on any single one of them, such as exploitation, which is one of the 12, the pressure from angling, is not the panacea to resolving the problems of wild salmon. If we take angling specifically there and look at it, the anglers are catching approximately 10% of the stock, and of that 10% that they're catching, they're releasing 90% on average, so they are killing at the moment about 1% of the stock. Now, intentionally, consciously, of the 90% they release, we estimate that 10% will die as a result of the angling activity, even though released before spawning. In a grade 1 river where our science suggests that they're meeting the conservation limits and we want to be science-led, that a potential 2% impact on the stock is reasonable, especially given the social and economic benefits. We talk about the River Tweed, for example. That is £24 million to the rural economy, and I'm afraid I don't know the figures to split elsewhere. The Tweed is perhaps just a good example. As I say, at the moment, we consider that on balance taking an environmental, social and economic considerations, the impact of angling we have got right allowing for retention in rivers where we assess scientifically that there is sufficient stock to allow some retention. You mentioned there a principle that's in European law, a test of reasonableness. Has there been any assessment in the last year of the impact of the decisions that were made previously to restrict the grading of rivers? A river that's moved from a grade 1 to a grade 2 or grade 3 has had any impact in terms of the socio-economic advantages of being able to catch and kill rather than just catch and release. Do you follow what I'm saying? I think I do. A few people fishing as a result of a river going from grade 1 to grade 3, and does that stand up in terms of your decisions? We're not sure at the moment, but Scottish Enterprise has currently got a three-month study under way with two consultants to look at that. They are looking at four areas of Scotland, and they've commissioned this three-month study, which they will share the results with us. When you say that it would be reasonable for economic reasons to allow angling on a certain river and catch and kill rather than catch and return, you don't have an economic basis to that argument. At the moment, you might do it in three months' time. We haven't done a study at the moment. Scottish Enterprise, as Simon says, is looking at some of that and some of the rivers in east coast of Scotland at the moment. What we have this year and particularly the last two years is a lot of concern from angling clubs, from district salmon fishery boards and from individuals through the consultation process that we've had. Last year, in particular, quite a number of people were very concerned that there were so many rivers that should have been assessed as grade 3, and came to us and said that this will have an impact on membership numbers, on local businesses, bed and breakfasts, caravan sites and all of the value added that angling brings. I'm just keen to see what the evidence is on that, because I just, you know, parochially, I live on the river teeth. It's a salmon river, it's grade 1. I think that the policy on the river teeth has been to not allow catching kill, even though it's grade 1. I still see people angling. I still see, you know, the launch of the salmon season and it being very successful and distilleries on the people getting involved and sponsoring it and it all looks good to me. So I'm not sure, even with the voluntary restraint that's being put in place, whether that's turning people away or not. I accept that we don't have a lot of data on that. In addition to this Scottish Enterprise study that's starting, we have launched for this season the collection of effort data and we hope over time that that may prove to show us trends in effort. We may be able to compare that against the grading of rivers to see whether there is an impact. Fundamentally, the grading is science driven. It's not, as you said at the start, at the very beginning of your questioning, that this is conservation led. We are not setting the grades in relation to fisheries, we're setting the grades in relation to the conservation of salmon. Of other members, Fin Carson wanted to ask a question on this theme and then Stuart Stevenson. I'm really confused if the evidence shows that the status of salmon in the rivers adds to the decreasing. This year we've got 43 rivers where the grade has risen and only eight falling. You're saying that's based on scientific evidence, but you're also saying that it's almost insignificant. I can't quite marry the two up where in the past you based most of the conservation efforts in reducing the ability for anglers to catch and kill. But this year, when the figures are still showing there's a reduction in salmon in the river, those categories have gone up. I just can't quite get my head round how previously it was the all important action that you were taking and now it doesn't seem to be quite so significant. I'll start from there but John may wish to come in on the science. Essentially what we're saying is had we used that the latest science are improved egg targets in 2016 and in every subsequent year there would have been historically more rivers in grade one and grade two category. So the result of that means that we could be criticised in previous seasons for being too precautionary. We have given rivers a grade historically where they were required to catch and release, where subsequent data, better science shows that we didn't need to do that. So we have published to the anglers where their rivers, or sorry, the number of rivers that would have been in grade one and two using the current methodology in 2016 going forward so that they can see the graph and the trend to try and explain that yes, this is not about stocks getting better, this is about our evaluation, our assessment of the stocks getting better and that we need to be science led. So yes, some rivers had to catch and release previously when actually that was too precautionary. So it's so, there's admittance that the basing, the grade of a river on catch and release was flawed. It wasn't scientifically based previously. It was the best available science previously, we've always said that. Season on season we've said it's the best available science. What we've said this year is that because we've been changing the methodology year on year we are now feeling a position that we should freeze the methodology until the 2022 season and during that period we will have our current methodology peer reviewed, something that was discussed at the last committee last year and John can talk in more detail if you like about the progress that we're already making on that peer reviewed. So in future basis, whilst the catch data will change, that is input into the model, the methodology won't, we're freezing it so we will get like for like going forward. It's kind of a maze, it's maybe worth emphasising. This is only the fourth year for which we are giving gradings and for which the regulations apply, as Mr Ruskell said. Those measures were brought in at least in part, in large part because there was the threat of infraction procedure from the European Union at that time and we introduced a number of measures. So spring conservation measures where we extended the closed time or changed the closed time for a lot of rivers during which people are not allowed to take fish was one of the things that we did at the time in 2015-16. We introduced the first set of regulations here, but at that stage our modelling was fairly new and fairly broad brush, so in the first set of regulations for 2016 season we assessed on the basis of fisheries districts, so there were about 100 districts which in broad terms were defined in the original Victorian legislation from the 1860s. And each year we've refined that further, so in the second year we responded to calls to assess individual rivers and we did that and last year and indeed this year we've added more rivers to the assessment. But there's been an awful lot of work in the scientific side of things to look at what's happening elsewhere and to refine the model and to respond to dialogue that we've had with fisheries trusts and boards and indeed with the committee to say we would like you to look at individual rivers, we would like you to focus instead of using an all-Scotland target for egg deposition, we'd like you to hone in on individual rivers. And all of it is about improving the science, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was wrong last year, it just means that it was the best we had available, there's a lot of work to change it this year. And in broad terms for my mic, because I'm no scientist, the egg targets for the majority of rivers in Scotland have effectively halved, pretty much halved, which means that the assessment, the broad arithmetic means that the conservation status or the requirement has changed and that brings us to a position where we think that there is a case within the same model as we've had to allow for some explotation. We do it in the knowledge that the majority of anglers continue to return fish and more than 90 per cent are returned, so catch and release is not just something that we've imposed, it's something that exists and people understand it and the river managers and anglers understand the need to engage in that conservation. So I don't think we're pulling the rug out from previous science, I think we're definitely saying we're responding all the time and we're making the science better. As Simon says, that means that last year arguably we were too precautionary. We still have a precautionary model, it just has a wee bit more room in it for some rivers and some fisheries this year. I have two questions related to the two per cent. I'll ask the difficult one first. Does two per cent mortality from fishing have any effect whatsoever on the number of fish that come from the eggs and return to the sea? I can see two things. If there are fewer young fish, there's more food per fish, but there are fewer fish for the predators to predate on, so I can see one pull and one push. I just wonder if we understand whether that two per cent mortality is either statistically or causally having an effect on the numbers that then leave to see after the reproductive cycle is complete. When we estimate the egg targets, that takes into account all of these factors, predation and competition between fish and food availability, to try and tell us how many eggs do we need to fill that system. If we have more eggs, we don't get many more adults. We're not quite full with the methods that are recommended by NASCO and ICES, we use what's called maximum sustainable yield, it's just yellow full. So, if one is below that critical level, that filling level, then every lost adult in principle has an effect on what will go out. If one's over that level, then you can put as many adults in as you want, but you cannot get more smolks out of your river. So, just to be clear then, if we're looking at grade one, we are looking at, therefore, a situation where the taking out of that two per cent is not having an effect, is that I'm getting a nodding head, so that's right. Right. Can I move to my other question, which is very simple? I just wondered how variable the two per cent is, because that's presumably the whole Scotland figure. How far does it move either side of the two per cent? Given the uncertainties generally, which I think we all understand, the more data we can get, the more precise we can get, I think the variability around that two per cent would not be a huge concern. Finlay Carson. To move on to proposals for developing the model in the future, last March you agreed to look at the possibility of gathering further detail and data on rod effort. Has that been carried out and given the sort of season that we had last year, do you apply different rules because it was particularly dry and so on, and how will that affect the model in the future? You've talked about the juvenile assessment model. How will that play into the future development of the framework in the model going forward? Three questions. First, on effort, we've introduced the recording of effort for this first season on rod days. We've sent out our topic sheet on that. We've sent out and put on our website Q&A so that everybody is aware of that. We will utilise the results and report back on those results. Depending on the data that we get, it could be built into the model. We need to see the data first, but we've begun that process. Question number three was about the Juvenile Assessment. As we've talked about the adults and working out how many eggs we think we need to fill a system, the juvenile assessment takes another approach and has a look at the system at the juveniles and works out how full it is. We have a different threshold then. We have the number of juveniles that we would expect to get in an area at a particular altitude and with particular land use around it. We have this image of what an ideal juvenile population looks like and we then collect data to see how close it is to that ideal. Once we have those data as well as the adult data, we can put the two models together, the two assessments together and we can look at how much coherence there is. Where we don't have coherence, we will have to have a closer look at those particular systems. We are getting very close now to having the juvenile assessment to go with the adult assessments. As Simon said, over the next month we should be in a position to see how well those mesh together. That will obviously include predation and whatever. Is there any plans or anything in her eyes in regards to predators in the river and maybe legislation, you'll have to bring in regarding licensing of controlling predators and thinking about cormorants and whatever? Is there any plans or any issues that you can see coming forward with predator control? Yes, if I take Pesciverus birds first we've managed to secure £750,000 of EMFF funding for research on that. This year on the river Dee we for the first time acoustically tagged pre-smolts with receivers in the river to try and identify predation by birds working jointly with the river Dee. If we tag pre-smolts and in the past it's been smolts, if we do pre-smolts we can reduce the risk that handling and the tag itself causes mortality. What we've also done is we've just launched a Pesciverus bird stomach analysis project. We have licensed four rivers, sorry Scottish Natural Heritage have licensed four rivers, the river Nith, the river Tweed, the river Dee and the river Spay, and they've each been given an allocation of 36 cormorants. We're going to have two periods where those species will be killed and their stomachs will be analysed to have a look at their diet. This was done in the 1990s so we've got some results from 20 odd years ago and we're going to compare the results from 20 years ago which will with higher numbers of birds, with this lower number of birds just to see whether the diet has changed. For example on the Tweed historically quite a lot of the diet was eels and we think that the diet has changed. By having four regionally dispersed rivers we can look to see whether there is a difference in diet because the freshwater species in rivers regionally throughout Scotland does differ. You tend to have a greater diversity in the south of Scotland than you do in the north of Scotland. Once we've got the results of that stomach analysis, we've got the results of the Dee acoustic tagging we're doing this summer. We hope to do two other pieces of work. One is to look at the bird count data that is supplied to SASA annually for rivers who want a licence to manage birds through SNH, to look at that data to see what trends it shows us and secondly to spend the bulk of the money in seasons 2020 and 2021 to do experimental field work. What can we do to, if the evidence shows we need to, to better manage these two protected species? We want obviously to protect both species but we want to get an appropriate balance between both species and ideally have non-lethal methods for achieving that balance. You say that the measuring process will continue until 2022. How do you expect the expected introduction of beavers to impact on salmon numbers, particularly hence salmon numbers ability to reach their spawning areas upstream? That's one of the pressures we need to look at. I mentioned 12 pressure groups and beaver management is within that pressure group. If resources allow, we have noticed that there are methods, which John may be talking about a bit more, where you can stick a pipe in beaver dams, which does not reduce the level of water sufficiently to upset the beavers, but nevertheless allows smolks and salmon to migrate through their dams effectively. That's a piece of, we look at that research and if resources allow work with the sector to try and see if we can implement that. I'm sorry to introduce such a mundane level of practicality into discussion as esoteric as this, but if you have a salmon that diameter, you're going to have a three or four inch diameter pipe, which will very rapidly reduce the level of an upstream dam if it's running constantly and, as presumed, it would have to to allow salmon to migrate through it, otherwise if it's only a two inch pipe, salmon won't get up it. How does that actually work, what you're telling me? The concept is called a beaver deceiver. The idea is that the entrance to the pipe is some distance upstream of the dam and as it drains the water, the level goes down, but the beaver can't figure out why it's happening. So it doesn't actually block the pipe, it tries to repair it. No, you're missing my point. If you have a four inch pipe to allow a salmon at least, I mean it'll have to swim up through it, so you're going to have to have a four or a five inch diameter pipe. No, it's a large drainage pipe. In principle we know that salmon… Indeed, well if that's running full bore from the water above, simple hydraulics will tell you that it will empty the dam above it. So how does that work? A six inch pipe, which would be the optimum size to allow a fish to swim up through it. How does that work? It depends on the height of the entrance to the pipe at the top end above the bay. Of course it does. But this is just a concept. I think you're right to identify that there might be issues with beavers in upstream passage. It's a working group that looked at the issue. There's not enough research at the moment to determine just how porous these dams are to salmon. So the salmon will essentially have to jump out of the pipe and back into the pool? It's just maybe one possible solution, but it's not been fully looked at. Matt Ruskell. I wonder perhaps if I could just take the converse point to the point that Mr Scott makes. Do you see any ecological advantages to having beavers working in a catchment, improving and extending the range of wetlands that are available, perhaps interacting with the regeneration of riparian woodland that can perhaps shade particular areas and provide temperature benefits given climate change to salmonid species and the wider ecology? Or is it all bad? It's probably a balance, actually. There are definite benefits, certainly for some species such as trout, which would very much benefit from the pools behind beaver dams. But the key issue, as mentioned earlier, is how much might the dams interfere with free passage of the spawning fish, and that is something that is still to be established. In terms of food species for salmonids and other species that are higher up the food chain, do you think the introduction of beavers into a catchment would enhance that? Very complicated. Atlantic salmon tend to like quite fast flowing waters. Trout like slower waters tend to out-compete salmon. You might have a situation that is rather good for trout, but not so good for salmon. It probably varies enormously from situation to situation, but it's clearly an issue as beavers expand in Scotland that will need to be looked at. Mark, if you'd like to carry on to your theme or question around riparian woodland. This was a point that I raised, convener, last year, and it was in the development of the methodology last year. It was clear that, particularly in relation to the interests of the Loch Lomond Angering Association, there were issues around the data collection and around fintry, whether, with your own research, whether you're actually able to even identify who the owners were of the riparian land. Perhaps it was inferred that this had influenced the data in some way, because you'd simply been unable to get access to the stretch of the river that you needed to count the eggs and everything else. It is a question about who owns Scotland, but do you have greater certainty this year as to who owns particular stretches of riparian area, and have you been able to get access to satisfy all of the pressure groups and stakeholders that you've been able to do the most robust science that you can on the ground? Yes, I'm pleased to report. We do have greater assurance. In respect to the River Endrick, we approached 70 potential owners of heritage rights and established 15 new owners. For those 15, three will be sending in catch returns from now on. They will give us their historic catch returns, but they will also be giving us catch returns in the future. In 2012, we were able to confirm that there are dormant fisheries. They don't allow fishing on the fishery. Historic catches that we got from those 15 new owners were not significant and would not have changed the River Endrick's grade. Last year, I said that we didn't know who owned the heritage rights for about 21% at the river length. We now assess that to be about 7%, and that's in line with our national situation. To be honest, we probably think that there's about 7% of river lengths that we don't know, and we seek annually to try and improve that situation. Ideally, we would like to have an online salmon and sea trout catch repository so that proprietors could put their catches in online. I think that that will drive if we're able to deliver that data quality improvements and allow us to reduce the 7% as well. The final question is from Finlay Carson. It's a simple question. In March last year, I asked whether there was any expectations of wild fisheries bill coming forward. Simon, have you got any confidence that it will be brought forward in year three, as suggested might be the case? It is still a candidate bill, as my understanding, I'm afraid. I can't say any more than that. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I'm going to suspend this meeting briefly. The fourth item on our agenda today is to consider two negative instruments. The first is the conservation of salmon Scotland amendment regulations 2019. Have anyone got any comments on this? It's salmon regulations. Anyone got any comments to make? You agreed that you don't want to make any recommendations in relation to those regulations. The second instrument is the conservation of natural habitats amendment Scotland regulations 2019. Members will recall that the committee took evidence from the Scottish Government and SNH on those regulations last week. Do you have any comments in relation to those regulations? I would like to let the committee know that I intend to lodge a motion that nothing further be done under this instrument. In other words, I object to this instrument being laid in the first place. I wish to pursue that. I don't think that the case has been made for the reintroduction of beavers and certainly the harm they will do is becoming more and more apparent. I would like to lodge a motion to annul. Obviously, if our colleague lodges a member, we will have a discussion on that at the appropriate time. Of course, that is not a measure that is anything to do with the reintroduction of beavers whatsoever. It is about managing the reintroduction that is taking place. When I look at the briefing note that we have, I can see a long list of things that will not have any impact and a few that will. The few that will, removing all the dams, destroying lodges, timber barriers, trapping and relocating beavers and lethal control, are all in fact things that are covered by existing cruelty to wildlife legislation. I suspect, and we will have the debate in due course, convener, that when we look at the effect of this, we will see that it is simply systematising the situation that exists at the moment. You cannot go and exercise lethal control haphazardly and randomly and crudely on a beaver right now without this. That merely creates a framework within which lethal control can be operated, as it is at the moment. Therefore, I am less certain than John Scott that I would wish to support him on the proposal that he is intending to bring forward. I am disappointed, convener, to hear that there will be an attempt to try and stop this statutory instrument becoming law. We have waited three years for the protection of beavers to come in. During that time, we have seen disastrous attempts to try and manage beaver populations. We have seen the shooting of pregnant animals and kits. There have been very serious welfare issues connected with that. We have seen a very strong lobby to try and prevent this protection from being brought in. That has delayed things even further. I would not want to see this delayed even further, particularly because, given that we are in the middle of the kit dependency season, I am sure that there are interests out there in shooting and killing animals, as we speak. What I would welcome is the clarification that the committee has had from SNH in the last couple of days around the transparency of the proposed licensing regime. Quite frankly, at the moment, we have a free-for-all. I welcome some of the data that will be put forward based on local authority area, the activities that will be permitted. I do think that this licensing regime cannot just be a free-for-all. It has to be well understood and well controlled. Anybody that breaches this regime will be committing a wildlife crime. The one point that I would add to this response is that I think that the data needs to be available on a quarterly basis, because there is a concern from stakeholders that we are going to see highly inappropriate lethal control continue, particularly during the kit dependency season. If the data that SNH committed to providing on this was available on a quarterly basis, we would be able to assess whether there is, in fact, a closed season that is in operation, which is in the best interests of animal welfare. I think that that is the missing bit that I would like to see. I would suggest that there is a way to get greater clarity from SNH on that. I take that into consideration when we come to a final debate and what will hopefully be a successful vote on the introduction of this protection. Thank you to all of you for your comments on this. This obviously means that we will need to continue our consideration of this instrument at a future meeting. That concludes the committee's business in public today. It is the next meeting on 19 March. The committee will hear from the Scottish Land Commission on its current work programme. We are now going to move into private session and ask that the public gallery be cleared.