Seal Shooting Licenses for the Dee, Don, Ythan: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/1790
Date received: 28 June 2018 
Date responded: 24 August 2018
 
Information requested

 

"Copies of and include conditions to Seal Shooting Licenses for the Dee, Don and Ythan, both for the river and estuary sections. Please include any individual, group (Trust, Association, Board etc.) and company licenses.  I note that on the Marine Scotland website seals are only shot as a matter of "Last Resort", please can you confirm that this is the case with regard to seals shot in these locations and please provide information as to what type of non-lethal anti-predation methods are being used.”

 

Response

 

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. 

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(a) (Information not held at time of request) and 11(2) (Personal information of a third party) of the EIRs apply to that information.  The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained below.

We have provided information which includes application forms, supplementary information and licences, which provide evidence regarding your query that “seals are only shot as a matter of "Last Resort"”.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above.
If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

 

Reasons for not providing information

 

Exceptions that apply.

Exceptions under regulations 10(4)(a) (Information not held at time of request) and 11(2) (Personal information of a third party) of the EIRs apply to some of the information you have requested.

The Scottish Government does not have the information.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.  The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because applications to manage seals were not received for the River Don and so licences do not exist.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’.  Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.  We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.  While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the River Don clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Regulation 11(2) – Personal information of a third party. 

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EISRs (Personal information of a third party) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.  This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

 

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