Yes Minister, we'll save Nessie from the poachers
Marc Horne
THE cold war and the aftermath of the miners’ strike may have dominated the headlines. But behind the scenes some Whitehall officials were more preoccupied in the mid-1980s by the safety of the Loch Ness monster.
Newly released files show that officials working under the Thatcher government feared that there would be nothing to prevent poachers and trophy hunters killing it, were Nessie to emerge from the depths.
The documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show a flurry of consultations, meetings and briefings between the Scottish Office and the Foreign Office.
Eventually it was decided that no new act of parliament was needed and that the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act made it an offence for anyone to snare, shoot or blow up Nessie with explosives.
Officials concluded: “The legislative framework to protect the monster is available, provided she (or he) is identified by scientists whose reputation will carry weight with the British Museum.” The files
also show that a decade earlier, interest in the monster had reached ministerial level. Willie Ross, the Scottish secretary, had considered the issue of its existence after the publication of pictures said to show Nessie.
The alarm over its legal status was sparked again by a letter in August 1985 from the British embassy in Stockholm to the permanent under-secretary at the Scottish Office. “I am sorry to bother you with an inquiry which will, no doubt, be greeted at first glance with gales of laughter,” it began.
The letter followed a request from Swedish officials seeking information on the legal safeguards for Nessie. They were considering statutory protection for the Storsjö monster, its counterpart in Sweden, said to inhabit Lake Storsjö in the north of the country.
The embassy letter continued: “The county administrative board into whose area the Storsjö lake falls . . . has approached us for help in dealing with pressure for protection of the Storsjö monster, whose status is somewhat similar to that of our own in Loch Ness.
“What, they wonder, do we do? Is ‘Nessie’ protected in any way? The inquiry is a serious one and we should like to give them at least a half- serious reply.”
A series of memos between British government departments followed, including one from J B Barty, a civil servant at the Scottish Office, stating: “The protection of this putative denizen of the deep deserves serious consideration.”
An official reply was eventually sent to the embassy in Stockholm, signed by one F H Orr. It stated: “The secretary of state for Scotland has powers, on representation made to him by the Nature Conservancy Council, to make an order adding any wild creature to the schedule if in his opinion that creature is in danger of extinction . . .”
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Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
