Clear on Deer
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Moray Outfitting
Well-Known Member
ok guys, I will wait till I see some responses before I put in my tuppence worth. J
Hayduke
Well-Known Member
Thought it was pretty one sided, very little time given to other viewpoints. Would have liked to hear from some estates.
Deer and peat carbon are compatible. Its rare I find sphagnum moss in gralloch/stomach bag. But they keep on about peat as a justification to kill more deer yet also said deer eat young trees, tree and shrub regeneration and new growth on older trees.
Deer and peat carbon are compatible. Its rare I find sphagnum moss in gralloch/stomach bag. But they keep on about peat as a justification to kill more deer yet also said deer eat young trees, tree and shrub regeneration and new growth on older trees.
The Amazon rainforest is being cut down at a rate of 10,000 acres PER DAY, any supposed regeneration benefit achievable in Scotland by killing deer is miniscule and not worth bothering about in real terms.
Heym SR20
Well-Known Member
And lets not forget the seabed and the kelp forests that once to supply huge amounts of kelp as the fertiliser all around the UK.
Most beaches now have limited kelp blown ashore.
Seaweeds grow very rapidly if left alone and a large proportion ends up locked away at the bottom of sea, locking up huge tonnes of carbon every year.
Yet we let trawlers continue to wreck the seabed and thus the kelp forests.
Buying out fishing trawlers would have far more immediate effect than waiting a couple of centuries for big woodlands to regrow.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
I’m not seeing too many flaws in the argument.
There should be trees right up to the tree line, there aren’t, and that’s largely down to human management.
The management strategy has changed, trees, carbon capture and climate crisis are replacing deer, grouse and sheep.
The deer will survive, and will do better once they can live in the habitat they are designed to thrive in.
There should be trees right up to the tree line, there aren’t, and that’s largely down to human management.
The management strategy has changed, trees, carbon capture and climate crisis are replacing deer, grouse and sheep.
The deer will survive, and will do better once they can live in the habitat they are designed to thrive in.
But what about all the species that rely on the ecosystem as it currently is and has been for centuries? Some of which are vulnerable.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
They’ll still be there, just not in the numbers that they are now.
The open moorlands are man made and maintained because they suit the landowners.
Scottish deer stalking is celebrated because it is pretty unique, red deer are normally found in forests but your Scottish deer are on open mountains and are small compared to the deer in more forested areas despite 150 years of management.
Similarly you have areas managed for grouse, grouse don’t like trees, so yes, you’ll get fewer of them, but they’ll still be around.
It just won’t be profitable to give over large areas solely for their propagation.
The one creature that probably won’t do well is sheep.
You’re wrong but there we go, moorland species are well established due to the amount of time moorland has been in the uk, a lot, lot longer than people have been shooting grouse.
Some are completely reliant on the moorland habitat and will disappear with the moorland. The trees planted will be a new ecosystem that is not natural or naturalised and will reduce biodiversity, not increase it. But, they will be lucrative for the landowners selling as carbon offset.
It’s pure capitalism masquerading as a green initiative!
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
Thats a fairly strong statement.
But I’m not the one that’s mistake, I think it might be you.
Moorland isn’t going to vanish, you’ll have new moors on both uplands and low lying boggy areas ( peat is a very big deal if you’re into carbon capture).
There’ll be a lot less of it dedicated solely to the production of grouse or deer for sporting purposes but the habitat will remain.
Please don’t be lecturing me on the marvellous bio diversity to be found on grouse moors, essentially it’s a monoculture with one single crop and up until very recently grouse was pretty much all you got, hares, foxes, deer, anything that competed with the grouse or carried ticks or diseases got very short shift.
The trees will definitely change biodiversity for the better, purely because there are more plants, animals, insects and fungi adapted to forest habitat.
As for pure capitalism, what do you think it was that drove the “ Clearances” and replaced tenant farms with sheep?
The farms and crofts and their associated population demands cleared the trees initially.
When the railways came and it became more profitable, the sheep went, replaced by stags and grouse and that’s been the case for the past 170 years or so.
Finally, after 5-600 years we’ve come full circle, the trees are going to be put back.
It’s always been about the money, except for the few who can afford to run a sporting estate at a loss out of their own pocket. Those few get to choose to carry on as before or change with the times.
My bet is that there’ll be a mixture of responses, but once a moorland estate is re- wilded it’s gone forever as a pure moorland habitat.
I don’t strongly disagree with anything you have said, other than the trees coming back, if the trees that are planted are native species planted at natural spacings that’s a win. Monoculture of non native trees in tight rows will be of very little benefit.
Which do you think we’ll end up with?
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
I think we’ll end up with both.
Im also not fixated on the native tree only mantra, if the climate is changing then immigrants like beech or walnut may do better.
One thing is certain, fairly substantial change is coming, whether we like it or not.
Agreed, winter is coming…..
But for native trees, there is no denying natives are more beneficial for invertebrates which are a fairly essential trophic level!
Freeforester
Well-Known Member
They’re not shy about messing up peat when it comes to digging foundations and tracks for wind farms, I’m pretty sure they do a lot more disturbing of peat than the deer on the hill. In any event, the entire carbon dioxide trope is a red herring - Professors Happer and Van Wijngaarden at Princeton have proven conclusively that both man-made carbon dioxide and naturally occurring carbon dioxide emissions do not drive climate change. There is no climate emergency. The ideology that it does only serves to keep people paying taxes and others in non-jobs.
how it doesn’t impact the climate, it’s the climate which determines the levels of co2 in the atmosphere:
And
Freeforester
Well-Known Member
Given that acre for acre, Heather moorland - of which over 90% of the global total this habitat type is found in the U.K. - captures and stores more carbon dioxide than the Amazon rainforest, they might consider leading by example and not destroying it by planting it up with not native tree species, etc.
Freeforester
Well-Known Member
Quite so, but it’s more likely to be the ’polar opposite’ (see what he did there?) of what the current crop of politicos are suggesting.
Moray Outfitting
Well-Known Member
I did find it one sided. Why is it the majority of the filming of "Barren Moorland" is always done in the winter when ALL land looks at its worst. The John Muir trust woman was well wrapped up for the winter. Said she didn't see any dragon flies around. Of course you wont in the winter. When stalking the bogs of Caithness there were many. But in the winter hind time, of course none. Someone said that if the trees are aloud to grow there will be less grouse and deer. What income does the landowner have then? Tourists do not pay to walk on your land. In the film she did mention that there were many folk employed in the sporting side. How were they going to address that was her comment. But not once was one of these people asked about what they thought. The one positive was the girl that wrote Hindsight. She went stalking on the hills. Did not shoot and let the stalker do the job. I read it and was not impressed with her thinking. Glad to see that her mind has been changed when she realised that the deer are now more or less classed as a "Pest". J
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