Scottish Animal Welfare Commission: welfare of isolated populations of feral animals - report

1. Scope

SAWC has undertaken this area of research at the request of the Chief Veterinary Officer (received 26 November 2025), who requested that SAWC consider the following:

‘No further advice on the legal position is necessary, however there are still moral and ethical questions about the responsibilities of land owners to intervene to protect the welfare of isolated populations of unmanaged wild or feral animals on St Kilda and in similar situations, such as the various populations of feral goats in Scotland. There are other examples internationally. I would therefore welcome a SAWC opinion on the ethical responsibilities of land owners in these situations, considering the practicalities of any intervention and how long it is reasonable for any moral responsibility for introduced wild or feral animals to continue after the initial introduction.’

This was triggered by a number of letters, emails and petitions [particularly Petition PE2021: Ensure the definition of protected animals in the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 applies to the sheep on St Kilda¹] concerning the welfare and mortality of the Soay sheep on the island of Hirta, St Kilda, in the Western Atlantic, and concerns about the culling of feral goats at Langholm and Newcastleton [PE2151: Grant protected status to primitive goat species in the Scottish Borders²]. The welfare of farmed and managed animals is covered by the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006³, which outlines the duties of owners or keepers of animals with regards to their welfare. Free-living wild animals are not covered by this legislation except when they come under human control, although there are specific protections under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which may vary by species and are mainly focused on the conservation of populations rather than the welfare of the individual. Wild mammals are also protected from a range of deliberate acts of cruelty by the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996⁴ and wild deer have specific legislation, including welfare provisions, in the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996⁵.

However, the domestic/wild dichotomy does not clearly apply to a category of animal that falls between these two groups, i.e., feral animals. These are animals that have been under the control of humans at some point in their evolution, and thus may once have been classed as domestic, but are now living as if they are wild animals without any human intervention. The transition from domestic to wild may have occurred a long time ago in some cases, e.g., hundreds or thousands of years ago, and these animals may have received no human intervention for centuries. In these cases, particularly those animals on remote island, coastal or mountain habitats, they may have been deliberately placed there by humans. In other cases, such as feral pigs in Scotland, domestic pigs and farmed wild pigs may have escaped from farms more recently, often without human intention for these animals to live without human care. The legal status and responsibilities to these animals can be contested, but the ethical and moral position can also be explored, separately from any legal requirements.

The term ‘feral’ can be used in many different contexts – to mean any animal that was once domesticated, but now lives without human intervention, whether that is related to a recent release/escape or to releases that may have occurred a long time ago. In Australia, feral is sometimes used to denote animals that are wild species, but have been transferred to another country and are considered invasive alien species⁶. Further, the term ‘feral’ is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, to mean an alien or invasive species, which is often then associated with concerted attempts to eradicate or remove that species. In this report we adopt a scientific rather than a legal view of the term ‘feral’. Our focus is on animals that were once domestic animals, but are now free-living and ‘functionally’ wild, i.e., they live as if they were wild animals, showing similar behaviours and adaptations to the environment as wild animals. For this report we focus specifically on those which have not been under the control of humans for many generations and can be considered to be ‘naturalised’ or adapted to the local environment.

In this report we do not address the legal status of these animals, but focus on our moral and ethical position towards them, and whether there is a requirement on these grounds for intervention in terms of their welfare. We will restrict our focus to those animals deliberately placed in their current situation or animals left or abandoned when people have moved (e.g., during the clearances in the 1800s), particularly those on islands or coastal locations, or in remote and inaccessible areas. We will not consider recent escapes from farmed situations, or free-living farmed animals, such as extensively managed sheep kept on unfenced pastures, as these are clearly under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006³. The populations we considered in Scotland include the Soay and Boreray sheep, Ovis aries, on the islands of St Kilda, North Ronaldsay sheep on Orkney, goat, Capra hircus, populations, for example those on Rum, Islay, Mull, Colonsay, Galloway, Langholm, Ardnamurchan and elsewhere. We also briefly consider the population of feral cattle, Bos taurus, on Swona, which have been living without human intervention since 1974, but for whom there is very little information available. We also draw on information from other internationally described populations, such as the feral horses, Equus caballus, on the Sable Islands in Canada, dromedary camels, Camelus dromedarius, in Australia, and the de-domestication/re-wilding work in Oostvaarderplassen, the Netherlands (although this latter is an experimental release of animals and is not located in a remote or inaccessible area). In some areas we describe and discuss specific species information, where that is available, but we also consider aspects of sheep and goat welfare together where these are described as ‘small ruminants’. The aim of this report is to consider the welfare of these animals in their current environments and make recommendations relating to our ethical responsibilities and obligations for their welfare.