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The head of one of the world’s leading conservation organisations has
rebuked the Scottish Office over its treatment of otters that live in the
path of the controversial bridge being built between the Scottish mainland
and the Isle of Skye. In a letter to Ian Lang, Secretary of State for
Scotland, Martin Holdgate, director-general of the World Conservation Union
(IUCN) says ‘insufficient thought has been given to other options for the
bridge route’. He expresses surprise that construction has not stopped
even though conservationists are challenging the siting of the bridge in the
courts.

Roads linking the bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland and on Skye
will cut through prime otter habitat, while the bridge itself will bisect
Eilean Bhan, the ‘otter island’ where Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of
Bright Water, lived until his death in 1969. The West Coast of Scotland is
home to around 700 otters; about 5 per cent live close to the planned
bridge.

Holdgate stresses Britain’s obligation to protect endangered species under
the terms of the Bern Convention, which was incorporated into British law in
the 1989 Wildlife and Countryside Act. Under the law, projects that would
damage the habitat of an endangered species are allowed only if there is no
satisfactory alternative.

Simon Stuart, head of IUCN’s species survival programme, says it is vital
to set the right precedent for development on the West Coast of Scotland.
‘It is a question of principle, and of the obligations of the British
government under the Bern Convention,’ he says. ‘It is not clear to us that
the correct procedures have been followed.’ He stresses that the IUCN does
not claim that this project spells doom for all Scottish otters, but that
it would be the ‘thin end of the wedge’.

Encouraged by the IUCN’s intervention, opponents of the project are now
pinning their hopes on a legal action by Save the Otters of Scotland Group.
The group will argue in Edinburgh’s Court of Session that the siting of the
bridge breaches the Wildlife and Countryside Act. In his letter to Lang,
Holdgate describes it as ‘out of character’ for Britain to allow
construction to continue until the case is settled.

Holdgate’s intervention follows another letter widely circulated to
conservation groups by Claus Reuther, chairman of IUCN’s otter specialist
group, which has split opinion among conservationists. ‘Conservation
organisations ought not to allow otters or their habitat to be destroyed,’
writes Reuther. This is a clear reference to the Vincent Wildlife Trust,
which assessed the impact the project would have on otters, along with
Scottish Natural Heritage and the World Wide Fund for Nature, which played
important parts in the process.

None of the three groups pressed for an alternative route, instead they
backed plans to build artificial holts and water holes, erect otter-proof
fencing and dig otter tunnels under the roads to prevent them from being
killed by traffic. ‘We should not ask how to make the road otter-friendly,’
says Reuther, ‘but whether we need the road here at all.’

George Medley, director of WWF-UK, responded angrily to the IUCN’s
intervention. Reuther’s views were ‘based on no scientific evidence
whatsoever’, he complained. ‘WWF is not in a position to comment on the
desirability of the route or of alternatives. We are not road engineers and
that is not our remit.