A GAMEKEEPER who killed four buzzards with poison has been ordered to carry out 100 hours of community service.
David Whitefield, 45, admitted killing the birds of prey by putting down poisoned bait at the shooting estate where he worked.
He was found with enough chemicals to kill 8,000 birds during a raid at the estate.
Whitefield has lost his job and been evicted from his home at Culter Allers Estate in Biggar, Lanarkshire, after carrying out the attack in 2009.
It emerged in court that he was fined £300 in 2008 after a buzzard spent 48 hours caught in a cage trap on the same estate.
Whitefield, of Carstairs, Lanarkshire, admitted breaking the law by failing to check the home-made "crow trap".
Last month, Whitefield pled guilty to intentionally misusing highly poisonous chemicals to kill four common buzzards between April and November 2009 in order to protect game birds.
At Lanark Sheriff Court he was sentenced to carry out the community service order.
Whitefield was targeted in a multi-agency operation which involved police, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds(RSPB) and the Scottish SPCA's Special Investigations Unit.
They found the carcasses of the four birds and a search of an unlocked shed in the grounds of Whitefield's keeper's cottage revealed a bucket and coffee jar containing chloralose, a deadly poison that kills birds by shutting down their nervous systems.
Whitefield told police at first that the estate owner had not known he was poisoning birds.
But after he was fired and kicked out of his cottage, he claimed his employer had told him to reduce buzzard numbers in any way he saw fit, although he had not specifically been told to kill them.
Following the sentencing, Mike Flynn, Scottish SPCA Chief Superintendent, said: "The systematic targeting and poisoning of birds of prey for the protection of game birds is a serious wildlife crime that is extremely difficult to identify and prove.
"We are therefore delighted that Whitefield has been convicted of this offence."
