September 29th

Men of Iron: I have just returned from a stalking trip on the north west coast of Scotland. The estate I was stalking on had four Munros, all of which could be reached by walking from sea level. This was to prove to be a very long day. 

As we left the roadside in the morning the stalker, myself and the ghillie passed a tent zipped up and with no sign of life. We set off climbing the very steep face. After an hour it became apparent by the behaviour of some hinds that the munro baggers had spooked the deer and they were heading round the rocks towards a stag we had decided was shootable as he was underweight and still in velvet. This caused us to retrace our steps back to the road for a rethink. 2 hours on and we had climbed the hill back up another route.

The frustration was exasperating. That day three men from the estate were all working and two paying guests were out. These guests were not wealthy land owners but working men who had saved hard for this special hunting experience. I cannot, for the life of me, think of any other working scenario where people taking leisure can disrupt men at work like this. It is unfair that working people in the countryside have no recourse when it comes to this type of situation. How easy things could be if, during the stalking season, walkers could communicate better with the estate before taking access or allow the estate, with understanding on both sides, to shut down on so many days a year to carry out essential management. Some work has been done on this but much more is needed if we are going to be able to carry out our jobs properly.

That evening, in the bothy, we were discussing the days events and its merits. We were all in agreement that the men who work in these mountains are a very special breed- and extremely fit! Two of the stalkers I was in company with were 62 and 63; unbelievable when you think that somebody in public service can retire at 50, usually on a very good pension. These men had to climb that mountain every day except Sunday, not like the munro baggers who were able to cherry-pick their leisure days, perhaps not even appreciating the wildlife around them. If men and women are to work in the countryside there has to be far more respect from visitors.

Far more scary was that, after 3 days, we hardly saw a beast. Discussing this with the stalkers, they were in no doubt that this was due to the out- of- season culls carried out by the John Muir Trust. This is a policy they have been pursuing, trying to establish birch scrub on peatland that is so poor it is unlikely to support trees.

I care so passionately now about this subject that I feel these hard working men on the hills may lose their jobs, forever ending 150 years of tradition and culture. But we will not stand by and watch this happen. We have been fortunate recently to work with Professor James Fenton, an eminent ecologist, on the science behind upland management and deer in relation to it, and we will be heading for Parliament to try and bring some balance to a horrible situation these men from the hills have found themselves in. It will be a sad day for our wildlife and profession if these people are driven from the hills by a policy with dubious ecological merit.

September 19th

Since the 12th August, we have been at the grouse and it has been great to  see, first hand, what it means to communities. 
It is not just about the keepers and shooters, it is the whole entourage that come together during a day on the hill.
Forty beaters, a dozen pickers-up, the guns, the loaders, it is unbelievable seeing everyone head out onto the heather. I have also been impressed with the professionalism of the keepers, their tweeds, their care for the job and the respect and pride with which they work. For a young person starting out in the industry, it is a great example.
This year has been special due to the large numbers of grouse. This is down to management, predator control and working with nature. We have had nice weather in the spring and early summer for the last couple of years, lots of insect life and good, mixed weather at hatching time. The careful use of medicated grit also helps the health and condition of the birds, overall.

It is quite amazing how many people are employed and how much money it brings in. If you extend that across Scotland, it is significant. I don’t think there is any other economic activity that could replicate the benefits for communities in these areas. Without it, I think we would see a lot more Sitka Spruce across our hills. I think it’s almost certain that we would have had more incursions of such species onto endangered heather moorland, if people had not been so keen to have grouse. Alternatively, these upland areas might have been over-grazed by sheep because that would be one of the few other possible land uses. What we would have in our uplands is large areas over-run with bracken, less income and none of the wider community benefits or jobs we see from grouse-related activity, and that’s not just for the moor owner. The benefits to other species, too, is massive. I personally think that, if a naturalist was to write a book in 100 or 200 years’ time about our history as we know it now, he or she would acknowledge we wouldn’t have nearly so much wildlife if it wasn’t for the management of keepers. When they look back on it, they will say, ‘thank god someone was interested in achieving a balance’.

June 4th 2014

Who would have thought that the recent Land Reform Review Group’s report would be so contentious?

As far as wildlife is concerned, the report takes no account of the need to have large enough tracts of land, and the investment and incentive to go with this, to allow Scotland to manage and maintain a wide range of flora and fauna at scale. This management is carried out everyday to a high standard seven days a week by many of our hard working members. Fragmentation will not advance the case for wildlife.

At the moment there is a consultation on the current state of our trout and salmon rivers, but which conveniently avoids the huge elephant in the room - salmon farms which are killing our wild salmon with sea lice and pollution from the cages. 

Why is this fact being ignored? Maybe the money being made by the salmon farming industry is over-riding the environmental damage which is being wreaked underneath our estuaries. If this industrial style damage was to be done on the land there would be a huge public outcry and calls for change.

The government is also proposing new legislation on licensing air rifles even after receiving thousands of signatures opposing it. I believe some of these new proposals will seriously hinder the law abiding person from taking up the sport of shooting which, in the long run, will drive legitimate people away from owning guns. Maybe this is Kenny MacAskill’s intention. 

If we remember back to the terrible Dunblane tragedy, when all hand guns were banned, this denied our young sportsmen the chance to take part in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games. There was an understandable clamour for action. Yet, looking at the cold facts, we find that armed crime with illegal pistols has increased massively. The point is, no amount of knee-jerk legislation will keep guns from idiots. 

Ask around, in any city centre, and the element in our society intent on criminality can acquire a firearm, or any other illegal possession, in half an hour, registered or not.

Every time legislation is enacted in our society, against the weight of opinion, the reaction is anger because the law abiding citizens realise they are the soft target. They are the people hit hardest by these draconian laws. Politicians are elected to listen to our concerns. When some are so one-tracked in their thinking that they ignore what they are being told, the only option left for people is to vote with their feet.

This past month we have been very busy trying to keep the never-ending tide of predators from eating our wildlife. Some of us have had fantastic success up to now, keeping the vermin at bay. 

Last Saturday evening we had six different keepers lined out on the hill waiting for one particular dog fox which has had some lucky escapes due to to topography and terrain. But I thought to myself, as I picked up each individual keeper in my binoculars, where else would one find such dedication and diligence? How many officials from the so-called conservation bodies would be showing the same amount of dedication on a Saturday evening, unpaid….. I wonder!

Whilst sitting out early doors last week, I was rewarded by seeing curlew chicks being brooded by the female and male curlew. And last night, whilst sitting on a high seat, I was delighted to watch the silent hunting of a barn owl. But when the hoolit landed on the barrel of my rifle, and gave me a look of total befuddlement before flying of again, I was totally impressed! 

March 31st 2014

Last Wednesday I attended a one day training event which was run by St. David’s Game Bird Services at Easter Bush Veterinary Centre. The course was very well attended with a large turnout of keepers on the day.

The course was designed to fit in with the new government welfare visits that many game farms and shoots will be having over the coming years.

The speakers consisted of

Tom Pennycott- A view from the Post Mortem Table
Barry Thorpe- Health Solutions 2014
Jan Dixon- Post Mortem Room Visit
Anne McKay- Animal Health Visits - What you need to know
Ian Mackinson- Premier Nutrition- How to make most of your game feed
Stephanie Mathewson- Scottish Agricultural College- Gamebird Rearing Management.

The day was a great success and the organizers hope to make it a fixture in the calendar each spring. Many thanks to Anne and Gillie for helping to pull the event together.

Last week I was asked by Dr Jayne Glass to speak to a class of Masters Students at the University of Edinburgh about wild land as a concept and policy issue in Scotland.

The students had been asked to analyse the different stakeholders’ views on wild land (what it is, where it is, what challenges/ opportunities the concept presents, how to protect it and manage it, etc ), as well as consider recent attempts to assess impacts on wild land through the mapping of core areas and recent debates about hill tracks.

As with all these things, the students are nobody’s fool and they quickly recognize when somebody is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

Wild land in Scotland is a misconception. SNH, for example, would have gained respect if they had called their consultation “managed wild land” as every where is managed by man, to some degree or another.

We touched on hill tracks and how, with an expert digger driver and a wee bit more expenditure, you would never know a new road had been put in.

We spoke of how important private money was in keeping our rural economy turning; keeping local schools open and sustaining lifeline community shops. The only jobs up these remote glens can often be for either stalkers or shepherds.

In my view, a landowner could come from Mars as long as he invested his private money into the local economy and managed his estate to best practice and with his neighbours’ interests at heart as well as his own.

This is a win-win situation for everybody concerned and even more so when it comes to stopping large tracts of land from becoming fragmented and our precious wildlife suffering because of it.

In the talk, we touched upon the sheer number of people accessing our Scottish hills and making it very difficult for the thing they were coming to experience- the wildlife- to co-exist. Should some of our mountains be closed down, periodically, to allow some recovery? Some leading ecologists believe so. Should some glens be restricted to organized vehicular access only to give our wildlife peace, as happens in South Africa?

On another subject, I don’t live far from where the latest Lambing Live was filmed for the BBC. It was interesting that, in the same week civil offences for not paying TV licences were being mooted, the broadcaster was flexing its financial muscle. How many BBC employees were needed to run some cables round a lambing shed? A dozen maybe? Twenty max? Eighty people were used and did they check in to the local B&B? No. They stayed in some very exclusive country club. It must be tough being the Beeb.

February 19th 2014

Can I just say a huge thank you to everybody that responded to the tail docking petition on our website.

There was a massive response from everyone, with a total of 4158 in favour of docking versus 175 against. Since the ban on hunting with dogs, never in my life have I come across such deep anger and frustration in the countryside. This is yet another example of government not listening to the people on the ground.

When will they wake up in Edinburgh? Maybe when we hand our petition over to the politicians something might register that things are badly wrong when it comes to our working dogs.

The terrible pain that has been endured by some of our dogs, not to mention the loss of our many important breeding lines, has, for the past 6 years, been a Scottish national disgrace.

Many of you will have been following the deer row which erupted, first, in the press after SNP MSP Rob Gibson took an interest in the Assynt John Muir Trust land where they have repeatedly refused to fence off some birch regeneration. This led to the RACCE committee asking us to give evidence in parliament, which was trying given that we had just spent 2 years of our life on the Wildlife and Natural Environment bill. This needs time to bed in and become useful. One thing that has become apparent from the evidence sessions is that the deer management groups need help from the stalkers when it comes to discussing the practicalities of the plan.

We will be pushing hard, along with the deer management groups, to have our practical and knowledgable voice heard. Some of our stalkers need the freedom to speak their minds and inform the debate, even when the factors and lairds are present at these gatherings.

Our AGM is at Inverness this year on Friday the 7th of March and the SGA team is looking forward to meeting you all at Caledonian Stadium, Kingsmill Suite. This will be the second year our annual meeting has been held up north.

The last time heralded a great turnout and was hugely successful and we are looking forward to repeating this over again. Our Environment Minister will be there to speak and answer questions you might have for him. We also have some fascinating speakers and it will be great to catch up with some old faces from the last time.