Dinosaur sites on Skye granted greater legal protection

The order, signed by the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment, Mairi Gougeon, aims to prevent rare vertebrate fossils from being damaged through irresponsible collection and removal from Skye’s globally important fossil sites.

Importantly, the NCO also aims to encourage local people and the wider public to take an interest in and report any potentially important fossil finds.

Skye is known as the “dinosaur capital of Scotland”, with key discoveries continuing to be made, including some of the first fossil evidence of dinosaur parenting.

However, important fossil discoveries have been damaged by hammering, with specimens taken from the island and moved to private collections. In 2016, an attempt to take a plaster cast of a dinosaur footprint at An Corran risked significant damage to a feature that has become an important tourist attraction.

Ms Gougeon said: “Skye lays claim to the most significant dinosaur discoveries of Scotland’s Jurassic past and this Nature Conservation Order is a vital step in protecting and preserving this important part of our natural heritage for future generations.

“The Order gives extra legal protection to these special sites whilst providing for important artefacts to be collected responsibly for science and public exhibition, as Dugald Ross of the Staffin Museum has been doing since his first important discovery in 1982.

“I hope the Order gives even greater awareness of the significance of these important sites, and the important and valuable role everyone has in helping protect them.”