Board gives sympathetic hearing after 13,000 signatures
The Wild Goat Conservation Trust has thanked its many supporters after their petition to save the wild goats on Langholm Moor was given a sympathetic hearing at the Scottish Parliament’s Petitions Board.
The petition was first launched by Ken Moffatt after landowners Oxygen Conservation announced a major cull of the goats which have freely roamed the land between Newcastleton and Langholm for centuries.
So far it has attracted more than thirteen thousand signatures, making it one of the biggest the Petitions Board has ever received, a point noted by the Convenor Carlaw Jackson.
MSPs Rachael Hamilton and Craig Hoy spoke in support of the wild goats and Emma Harper MSP sent a letter detailing her support.
During the meeting, the Convenor criticised what he described as “the dead hand” of NatureScot, which has so far insisted that the goats are not a native species even though they have been on the land for hundreds of years and therefore do not qualify for protected status.
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