Arran / Basc
- Thread starter Cranhill
- Start date
David Barker
Well-Known Member
Very odd but the lads on Arran were always capable of dealing with the deer on there own. Awarding this to any organisation with only weeks to get the tender ready would cause some speculation of insider trading.
Arran Estate
which lads on Arran?
You must remember that rainy night knock on the door? You know, with the one in front waving the AK!
David Barker
Well-Known Member
The Arran DMG and there local contractor,s FLS permanent wild life managers on Arran.
There isn't one - Bob wasn't replaced. Cover was being provided from the mainland area FLS manager.
David Barker
Well-Known Member
Sadly i am out of touch but i am sure the FLS Ranger contractor are capable of doing the job with out the help of organisation members. FLS have shut most of the leases down and taken them back in house why not Arran was it special or should FLS open up all the leases they shut and get rid of contractor fee,s
David
The BASC/FLS scheme on Arran was most certainly special, arguably unique in offering DSC1 qualified stalkers the opportunity to stalk unguided over some fantastic country and after IMHO the most noble of the the UK deer species. Even as a fairly experienced stalker having taken all 6 UK species and roughly 50 animals a year since getting DSC2, I still learned new things about deer stalking and indeed myself every time I was lucky enough to set foot on those hills and some fantastic (and emotional) memories were made during those stalks and friends for life.
The BASC/FLS Arran scheme was IMHO unique and must continue as such training opportunities are sadly all too rare.
How are they going to do the job with the costs involved? No larder and the uniqueness of Island life. The cost of culling 250 reds on Arran would be uneconical no matter how you look at it.
David Barker
Well-Known Member
Culling deer anywhere on government land is un economical you should know that. We have Larders sitting idle and they have been for four years. One was launched last week i believe in the borders or west Lothian the others still waiting to be placed all free of charge with money gained from the covid up lift fund. Arran is far easier to access than most of Scottish islands and they do fine. There is no reason other than mutual support to open land back up to rec stalkers.
Your spot on there.
The thing that is distinctly missing is FLS accountability to the tax paying community.
FC staff are still required to manage the recreational stalkers, ensure they a competent and culling the numbers they should be.
The annual skills assessment is one aspect, done by the FC, it's the shooting part of DMQ1 which is commonly delivered by others. However the FC do it in house using their staff to increase the supervision cost of recreational stalkers.
wildfowler.250
Well-Known Member
There seems to be a massive divide on this site between ‘recreational’ stalkers and contract stalkers. I don’t see why cull targets can’t be met in this instance through DSC 1/2 stalkers over a reasonable timeframe. Deer seem to be going down the route of being looked almost as vermin. Numbers on paper and targets have to be achieved as quickly as possible which is quite sad really.
As a public body FC/FLS are very risk averse, not only in stalking matters.
While it all seems overboard to some they are subject to detailed scrutiny/FOI/Ministerial questions on a daily basis.
Members of the "anti" public/press regularly challenge shooting on public land, especially in high public access areas and so public land managers need to be whiter than while when it come to safety compliance on their land. Imagine the outcry if someone was shot in a public forest!
That if the reason everything is "belt and braces".
wildfowler.250
Well-Known Member
I get what you’re saying and it makes a lot of sense but the Americans manage to have ‘public access’ hunting and they’re probably even more litigious than we are. I appreciate there’s probably larger areas of remote ground. But surely there’s a point where FC/FLS have put in enough proficiency/safety requirements in place and folk can carry on as before.
Agreed to an extent.
However they have a constant battle having to defend themselves against both the anti's and the pro shooting groups, who want more public access. This all takes meetings and management time and slows the whole process down.
Then add in public procurement legislation - this means that FLS were unable to simply extend the Arran scheme further by direct negotiation and we're obliged to run a public procurement exercise (again lots of management time). They can try to set up the procurement process to suit the particular tome of organisation that they want to win the bid but then that itself is open to challenge- which I suspect is why the latest Arran deer management offering has been pulled.
So back to the drawing board with more delay, time and cost......
cutty sark
Well-Known Member
There’s no doubt FLS have ground that could be put over to a tag system, small blocks with low deer density’s that can be managed by a couple of recreational stalkers visiting a couple of times a month and culling the odd beastie, but the vast majority of FLS beats demand intense culling 24/7, either by Rangers or by contractor’s.
FLS at the moment don’t have a pot to **** in and are under increasing pressure to cull even more deer with fewer rangers,funding etc, spending large amounts of money supervising a nation wide tag system is not going to work, and would not result in the extra numbers the Scottish gov want culled, I’m sure they’re are some very good recreational stalkers out there who could cull a few beasties at the weekend, but that’s it in a nutshell, weekends, not day and night for four months of the shittiest winter you could imagine.
FLS at the moment don’t have a pot to **** in and are under increasing pressure to cull even more deer with fewer rangers,funding etc, spending large amounts of money supervising a nation wide tag system is not going to work, and would not result in the extra numbers the Scottish gov want culled, I’m sure they’re are some very good recreational stalkers out there who could cull a few beasties at the weekend, but that’s it in a nutshell, weekends, not day and night for four months of the shittiest winter you could imagine.
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