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

3. SAWC evidence gathering and analysis

• Early in the lifetime of this work the SAWC Welfare of Isolated Feral Animals Working Group met with the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), as owner and manager of the St Kilda Islands. The NTS is also conducting its own review of the sheep on St Kilda, from the perspective of the ecological, archaeological and cultural value to the islands. Our work on welfare will dove tail with this report, although it is conducted independently of any position taken by the NTS.

• We conducted a review of the scientific and other literatures on the origins and historical records of naturalised sheep and goats in Scotland, and a review of the sheep and goat welfare literature.

• We also took evidence from a number of stakeholders and others who had expressed concerns about the welfare of the Soay sheep, including the petitioners from Uists, and those who had also expressed concerns about culling of feral goats.

• We met with Professors Peter Sandøe and Alistair Lawrence, who have conducted a recent ethical review of the welfare of feral animals and kindly discussed their work ahead of submission for publication.

• We met with representatives of the Soay Sheep Project (SSP), one of the world’s longest running animal studies, which has been studying the population and ecology of the Soay sheep on Hirta since 1952. We examined their annual reports, which are in the public domain, and requested some additional analyses of their data (described below). We were also in receipt of some analysis of the SSP data conducted by others.

• A group of representatives of the SAWC Working Group, with others from NTS and Scottish Government, conducted a field visit to St Kilda on 27^th April 2026 to observe the islands and the sheep in situ. We also met with other NTS and SSP staff, who were conducting field work on Hirta at the time of the visit. In addition to landing on Hirta, we sailed around Soay and Boreray to observe the sheep on these islands.

• We have investigated the opinions of those who manage Soay and/or Boreray sheep on the mainland through contacts with the Soay and Boreray Sheep Society, Wild Goat Conservation Trust and the Primitive Goat Breed Society.

• We conducted an expert review of the welfare of feral animals through the lens of the Five Domains model and an ethical review of the different management options for feral Soay sheep and Primitive Goats, which we have developed through the contacts and approaches described above.

• A complete list of those who gave evidence to us is presented in Appendix II.