Interesting. You do have to wonder why the BBC haven’t researched this correctly and printed same.
Quick question for my own interest, if this experiment has been going on since the 1930’s and they know the variations then surely there is little more to be learned from continuing it in the current form, or is there?
It sounds like this is the angle the two vets you allude to could be going for, as that’s how the article reads, as it could be reasonably argued on animal welfare grounds a reduction is necessary.
There are two answers here.
1. Welfare. This is the crux of the matter, and it comes down to (i) whether these particular sheep are classified as wild animals or not; and (ii) if they are wild, then do we have a duty of care to wild animals?
They are currently officially classified as wild, which means that, at the moment, there is no legal duty of care. If we decide that, in this case, there is a duty of care, that potentially sets a precedent that has broad implications. Essentially, it raises the question of where you draw the line. Nature Scot, and every other landowner, has absolutely no desire for a situation to arise where they could be held liable for the welfare of all the wild vertebrates on their land, for obvious and sensible reasons.
2. Scientific value. Yes, we know the broad demographic patterns. However, the value now is in following evolutionary change as it happens. The population is evolving, in response to a number of ecological drivers.
First, you can track the way different genes affect survival and fitness under different demographic conditions - so you can see how some genes do well when the population is dense, and how some do well when it is sparse.
Second, you can track how the population evolves in response to the changing climate. This latter is very useful indeed, because it allows us to understand how other large mammals may evolve (or not) in response to climate change. There is direct conservation relevance here, because so many of the the largest mammals around the world exist in similar conditions: small populations confined in island-like nature reserves with few or no predators. Evolution is slow, and requires many generations to follow.
Third, the whole ecosystem on the island is still changing in response to abandonment by people. The vegetation is changing (and this is monitored in detail). This change is slow - it will unfold over hundreds of years. So the whole system allows us to understand how natural systems change after humans stop actively managing them. Again, this is directly relevant elsewhere, give the explosion of rewilding programmes, many of which are going to be doing more or less the same thing: put up a fence, and let nature take its course. So the longer we leave it running, the more we understand.
This is one of a tiny handful of studies across the world on a wild, fully unmanaged population of large mammals where individuals can be tracked throughout their lives. There are probably fewer than 10 equivalent studies, and it is widely regarded as a global bench mark.
