A £150,000 operation to track down a lone stoat on a remote Orkney island has so far proved unsuccessful.
The animal, believed to be a male, was first reported on Rousay in April after a visitor raised the alarm.
Its presence was confirmed the following month, triggering a major effort to locate and remove the mustelid before it could become established.
Since then, hundreds of traps and dozens of cameras have been deployed across the island, alongside searches by specially trained detection dogs.
Despite the scale of the operation, the elusive stoat remains uncaught, with the most recent confirmed sighting recorded on camera on
To provide well-rounded coverage and a breadth of insight across various events, we rely on contributions from several staff writers, each bringing their own area of expertise to our publication.

