Selkirk Sheriff Court has fined a grouse moor gamekeeper £350, after admitting possessing pesticide and gin-traps calculated to cause bodily harm to birds and storing alphchloralose in an unmarked container.
Michael Seivwright, 52, of the Bowland Estate, near Galashiels, admitted using the gin-traps, outlawed in Scotland for more than 20 years.
When police and officers of the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds obtained a warrant to search the estate, Sievwright produced a tin containing alphachloralose from his jacket pocket, after returning from the moor.
