Let me start with a date for your diary – The SGA AGM is on the 1st March 2013 at Perth Racecourse, registration 9am. Hope to see you all there. What a busy week it has been! Duchess gave birth to fourteen puppies last weekend. Sadly two were still-born and the little one passed away on day two. So now we are left with eleven hungry, healthy bundles of joy! There is a lovely mix of colours from light fawn to dark brindle. There was a large turn-out which showed that Keepers are keen to gather information and the take- up on courses such as snaring and deer competence is very high. This shows that we are educated people and are striving to follow best practice at all times in our occupation and way of life. It gives me great pride to know that we, as professional wildlife managers, are striving to be the best in Europe. Nowhere else will you find such a rich diversity in such a small area. This is down to Keepers protecting Scotland’s Flora and Fauna. Could I just remind everyone, please remember and register your snaring details with your local police station to gain your identification number. This has to be done by April 1st, 2013. All details about this can be found on the SGA website. It’s almost puppy feeding time again. If this lovely, dry weather that we are having keeps up, we will be out on the hill burning heather next week. Who would have thought it, after all the rain and snow we have been bombarded with this winter?Due to mum’s lack of milk, we have been hand feeding every two hours and each member of the household has been called upon to roll their sleeves up and muck in. Waking for the 4am shift made me think I was back to stalking roe deer in the summer months. I have emailed the Glasgow Veterinary School in the last two weeks requesting information about the two papers on tail docking, which should have been on the government’s desk in September. They assure me that they will have these papers ready before our AGM. It is now a Scottish disgrace that we are the only country left in the UK with no provisions to allow our working dogs’ tails to be docked. People who work their dogs in the countryside are becoming very, very angry. If you feel strongly about this, I encourage you to write to Richard Lochhead and your local MSP. We have to keep the pressure on at this late stage in the proceedings. Last week, I attended a police wildlife conference in Galashiels. One of the main topics of the evening was the fact the Keepers must read the conditions of the General Licence before trapping any crows. The General Licence can be found online at the SNH website.
