Shooting and fishing: ‘You may now own a badger sporran, provided it has a government-issued licence’

and are the work of Beauly sporran maker Kate Macpherson. The boys were modelling the sporrans at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, the Highland answer to Glastonbury.

The original idea was that the sporrans would be paraded on the runway at the Ciao Bella fashion extravaganza organised by Mary McGowne, the central belt fashionista. In the end the boys were never allowed on the runway for fear of frightening the horses and small children.

But it’s nice to see animals once again being used for sporrans. If they are going to be run over, as a great deal of Macpherson’s material has been, then at least the animal has not died uselessly. There was a time when badgers were absolutely verboten as sporrans. And the same with pine martens, both protected species. But even Scottish Natural Heritage noticed the country was being overrun by packs of hedgehog-threatening badgers and capercaillie-crunching pine martens, so now the restrictions have been eased.

You may now own a badger sporran provided it is accompanied by a Government-issued license to confirm the animal died a natural death under the wheels of a car. The same with pine martens.

Foxes, of course, can be shot anyway as vermin, and the pheasants are classified as game. But will otters be the next protected species we can turn into sporrans? As things stand, otter sporrans are rare and old and are usually on their second or third generation of owner. But in spite of the fact the roads of the west highlands are strewn with dead otters, Macpherson has to turn down requests to transform them into sporrans. You can be perfectly sure that any attempt to lift the restrictions on ownership of a dead otter will be met by claims from the usual suspects that drivers will start to target otters to sell to black-market sporran makers.

Macpherson has already been told by animal rights campaigners that she should make her sporrans in fake fur, to which she replied that she could never contemplate such irresponsible behaviour; fake fur being the product of oil-based synthetics. Personally I have always rather wanted a “Minister” as a sporran – a black rabbit with a white collar – but have to make do with a small pre-Second World War badger with a worn nose.