A Scottish taxidermist is using animals knocked down and killed on roads to make sporrans.

Kate Macpherson, of Beauly, Inverness-shire, has collected badgers, foxes, deer and stoats from verges. But she has been criticised by animal welfare campaigners who say she is encouraging the use of animals for clothing. Mrs Macpherson said she was inspired by the the badger skin sporran worn by her father's Army regiment.

"If I didn't pick up these animals they would be rotting in a ditch. I'm creating something useful from them rather than allowing their beauty to be wasted." The mother-of-three's friends and neighbours tip her off on the location of road kills.

Mrs Macpherson, who trained in taxidermy when she was 22, has licences to handle protected animals, but has faced complaints from animal welfare groups. Lynda Korimboccus, head of the Scottish Animal Rights Alliance, said the use of the animals - even if they were killed on a road - was wrong. She added: "Using a dead animal for clothing perpetuates the idea that that's what animals are for."

I thought sporrans followed a traditional pattern like kilts rather than whatever was hit by a bus most recently!

You could always tell when stock levels were getting low...

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