Disposal of dead marine animals in Scotland: EIR release

Information requested

Under FOISA, I would be obliged for you to provide the following information:

• Between 2019 and 2020 and Jan 1 and Nov 16 2021, broken down by incident and the species involved, the cost to the Scottish Government to fund the disposal of dead marine animals in Scotland.
• As above for only animals stranded in Fife

For avoidance of doubt, the format of the information I am asking for is the month the animal was disposed off, the area it was removed from, the cost of disposal and the species of animal.

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.

The answer to your question is that there was only one payment made within the dates January 2019 and 16 November 2021. The payment of £9,675.00 was made in January 2021 for the disposal of a sperm whale at Ardersier with no payments made for disposals in Fife.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.