Rhum you will notice I use the original and correct spelling not the more often seen Rum, thats because I am an old fart.
Not sure what the deer situation is there now, but I was there on the old professional stalkers course in the 1980's at that time Rhum was owned by the then Nature Conservancy Council.
While owned by Conservancy Council Rhum, was used for research projects, quite a lot of studies were done on Red deer, there was no sport stalking as such, believe things changed when the island was taken over by SNH
When I was there due to the nature of the studies being carried out Rhum carried a high population of Red deer
IMO to high as a lot of deer in an age bracket [old] that in my opinion should have been culled, however as many calf's as possible were tagged and monitored throughout their lives
, and I believe ageing and natural death as opposed to culling was one of the studies carried out.
I would not imagine that the island would carry the same numbers now as it did then.
One of the things that impressed me most was the Rhum ponies, it was a girl that was in charge of the ponies
and if I remember correctly she took four to the hill, when a stag was loaded on a pony she turned it loose and it made its way home, it was an amazing sight to return from the hill to see all the ponies waiting in a line at the larder door to be unloaded.
IMO it was one of the best deer stalking courses there was, you had to be employed as a professional to get on it
a lot of the guys were young trainee stalkers but not all there was a few older guys also, sent on the course by our employers.
The course lasted a full week and subjects studied were the art of stalking and deer forest management,deer recognition and the principles of culling, pony work and emergency shoeing [would not be allowed now as only a registered farrier may shoe a horse] larder work, care of equipment, and deer census work.
There was no shooting test as it was presumed probably wrongly ,as we were all in the job we were all capable of that.
Apology's for high jacking the thread but when I saw Rhum mentioned I thought it might interest some of the younger stalkers who had never heard of the course, or maybe some of the older ones who were there.
Oh and if you were there I am not going to tell about the ceilidhs