Scots designer who turns roadkill into sporrans to die for

Kate Macpherson collects dead badgers, foxes and stoats from the sides of roads and, using her taxidermy skills, incorporates their heads into striking finished products.

The 46-year-old has faced criticism from animal rights campaigners because of her decision to leave the animals' faces on the sporrans.

But the mother-of-three has defended her one-woman business. "If I didn't pick up these animals they would be rotting in a ditch," she said. "I'm creating something useful from them rather than allowing their beauty to be wasted.

"But they're not for everybody I admit. People seem to either love them or hate them."

A trained taxidemist of almost 25 years, Ms Macpherson was inspired by seeing pictures of her army captain father, whose Argyll regiment wore badger-carcase sporrans. Ms Macpherson, who also uses Victorian animal wraps and discarded game from the shooting industry, works from her farmhouse near Beauly.

She produces 100 unique sporrans a year, with each one taking two weeks to make. They cost from 120 to 495, the most expensive being a badger or fox with a cantle - a metal sporran top.

Duncan Chisholm, chairman of the Kilt Makers Association of Scotland, said that she was reviving a traditional form.

"Sporrans used to be made from a variety of small animals - pine martens, otters or wild cats - though a lot of them are protected nowadays," he said.

"The key thing is that it has to be practical in both size and wearability, as it's got to be worn on a frequent basis."

Mr Chisholm, who owns a kilt shop in Inverness, said that sporrans made using real skins scored over ones made from synthetic animal hides which tended to look slightly garish when surrounded by the natural fibres used to make kilts.

The sporran has already been a focus of controversy after the European Union banned the sale of seal products across the continent - effectively ending the use of the skin in the manufacture of the accessory. The ban will come in later this year.

Although fully licensed to do her work, Ms Macpherson has run into trouble with animal rights groups.

One person, who saw her stand at the Scottish Game Fair in Perthshire, called the police who sent an officer to see her, believing her sporrans to be illegal.

Lynda Korimboccus, head of the Scottish Animal Rights Alliance, said: "To say these animals are ethically sourced is wrong - dead and ethical are not words that go together.

Using a dead animal for clothing perpetuates the idea that that's what animals are for."