Road kill used to make sporrans for kilts

A taxidermist is using wild 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.

She said she only used animals that would otherwise have lain rotting by the side of a road.

Mrs Macpherson said she was inspired by the the badger skin sporran worn by her father's Army regiment. The mother-of-three's friends and neighbours tip her off on the location of road kills. She said: "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." She added: "But they're not for everybody I admit. People seem to either love them or hate them." Mrs Macpherson, who trained in taxidermy when she was 22, has licences to handle protected animals, but has faced complaints from animal welfare groups.

Kate's website.