The SGA "Study" Part 1
- Thread starter bambislayer
- Start date
bambislayer
Well-Known Member
Thought you'd changed sides for a while Bambieslayer.
I don't take sides! I often still wear +4's but also wear a Swazi jacket! I have 3 pairs of "Maybole "sprung boots, hand made for me, I still see the craftsmans art in making them BUT I don't wear them as they are 7lbs in weight, Meindle Glockners are comfier and lighter!
I am passionate that we maintain a deer industry, I have spent every day of my working life and a hell of a lot of my childhood, working in some way with the Scottish countryside. I want it to continue. The Victorians didn't argue the fact that they wanted to hang onto the same life their fathers had, why should we?
I'm sure plenty of you who visit Scotland stalking , don't want to see change - why would you? You don't live here or have to make this land pay. My life was far simpler when I had plenty deer around the house and the bank balance was healthier with tips x 100 stags yearly. It wasn't sustainable though, if 20 years earlier the desision had been made to have enough for 30 stags, maybe we wouldn't have desimated 300ha of native woodland! I see that now, only after 1000's of deer shot, 100s of hours fighting SNH and redundancy and heart ache of family having to leave their family home. I am no looney lefty or tree hugger, just someone who has realised that we can't stay stuck in the past.
I know Peter well and know that he is only doing what he thinks is right, I fear though it is very misguided and doesn't stand up to very much scrutiny.
bambislayer
Well-Known Member
Maybe Estates should try and maniplulate the habitat within their own ground to hold deer, this isn't an overnight solution but again if someone had planted some strategic woodlands 30 years ago, they would now be open and providing shelter and feeding a resident herd. Scotspine has advocated this many times.
Would a farmer allow someone else to graze stock on his ground for 10/12's of the year, without any financial compensation? I don't think so! Would he feed cattle for 6 months to then allow someone else take them to market?
ecoman
Well-Known Member
Oh Bambislayer ! Woe is me!
I have no wish to remove those stars as I can see where you are coming from and everyone must have a valid point of view.
SOME points of view, however are not always just or balanced but coloured by experiences and views on life, and the differences in outlook, despite a common wish for well being of the deer in general from most parties flow from the big divide caused by 'class' and politics. I have always tried hard to ignore both sectors in order to concentrate on the deer alone, and as my old boss used to say, "Running a deer forest is like standing under a cold shower tearing up ten pound notes". His other pet saying was that proper deer management and cheque books never tallied to advantage, but he did carry on until he died.
I'm not an accountant in any way and set little store by economics, but I'm not so sure that private estates running a deer forest at a loss was a drain on any country's economy - apart from any forestry or woodland grants they might receive.
On the other hand, large tracts of otherwise difficult land to manage were looked after at little expense to the taxpayer and desoite historical grudges, I never saw people turned off the land although they might be asked to divert whilst stalking activities were in progress.
But then again, my experience will be different to that of others in different areas.
If I am grinding an axe it is purely on behalf of a wish to see a balanced manner of deer management which does not result in the patchy populations we are ending up with right now. There seems no sense to me in hammering a herd in chilling soaking conditions on the West coast if it is owned by an obliging deer forest owner, but in several places which once exhibited healthy and controlled deer parcels, sights of these animals are now often few and far between.
Projection models of probable herd statistics of over several years on a computer is in no way a substitute for the honesty of a sound weather prediction for the oncoming winter and spring as was often forecast by the old hillmen, and to laugh at that as being a fallacy would be sad. These men - in spite of any faults they might have, were experts at reading the signs and knew very well what the outcome would be to the herds.
I don't think that I've ever come across a PC projection verbally delivered by the boffins which allowed natural mortality occurring as a result of a hard winter and a soaking, incessantly wet spring, instead herd deaths are claimed by the wizards who invent these projections as coming from stress and starvation owning to overpopulation, thus giving a reason for urging even more shooting.
To dwell just a little on herd stability, in every part of this globe until humans interfered with the balance, all species depended upon an evolved herd number which would ensure survival for future breeding after hard times.
Well, it's getting that way in some parts of the hills that because of a mandate to shoot-shoot-shoot, the hills will not hold enough hind scent to attract travelling stags - that is if they are not shot in their far-off historical wintering grounds because the wintering grounds have been determined as being overpopulated.
After the years in which various parts of Scotland became more accessible, large stands of valuable timber were extracted for various uses including the war efforts.
This was a follow-on of a once heavier population using timber for fuel - then the incessant muirburn in aid of the sheep barons and the wool trade. It was not the deer which denuded the hills, but they did supplant the sheep to an extent after the wool trade slumped and the Victorian for deer stalking came into being.
I know the frustration of having my garden walls breached by big, cross bred sheep, and I also know the frustration of having bambi leap the fences and do the same, but deer make for more selective grazers and they move about, whilst sheep will stand and strip a place to the roots, urinating and defacating on the ground they graze upon.
Deer also complement cattle for healthy grazing and turf regeneration.
But this is all general knowledge. All I would like to see is the deer being given due respect and consideration and not being used as a tool in order to fulfill blinkered ambitions.
TWEED ! HEAVY, SOGGY, RASPING, 'ORRIBLE stuff ! Give me my deerhunter trousers any time.
I have no wish to remove those stars as I can see where you are coming from and everyone must have a valid point of view.
SOME points of view, however are not always just or balanced but coloured by experiences and views on life, and the differences in outlook, despite a common wish for well being of the deer in general from most parties flow from the big divide caused by 'class' and politics. I have always tried hard to ignore both sectors in order to concentrate on the deer alone, and as my old boss used to say, "Running a deer forest is like standing under a cold shower tearing up ten pound notes". His other pet saying was that proper deer management and cheque books never tallied to advantage, but he did carry on until he died.
I'm not an accountant in any way and set little store by economics, but I'm not so sure that private estates running a deer forest at a loss was a drain on any country's economy - apart from any forestry or woodland grants they might receive.
On the other hand, large tracts of otherwise difficult land to manage were looked after at little expense to the taxpayer and desoite historical grudges, I never saw people turned off the land although they might be asked to divert whilst stalking activities were in progress.
But then again, my experience will be different to that of others in different areas.
If I am grinding an axe it is purely on behalf of a wish to see a balanced manner of deer management which does not result in the patchy populations we are ending up with right now. There seems no sense to me in hammering a herd in chilling soaking conditions on the West coast if it is owned by an obliging deer forest owner, but in several places which once exhibited healthy and controlled deer parcels, sights of these animals are now often few and far between.
Projection models of probable herd statistics of over several years on a computer is in no way a substitute for the honesty of a sound weather prediction for the oncoming winter and spring as was often forecast by the old hillmen, and to laugh at that as being a fallacy would be sad. These men - in spite of any faults they might have, were experts at reading the signs and knew very well what the outcome would be to the herds.
I don't think that I've ever come across a PC projection verbally delivered by the boffins which allowed natural mortality occurring as a result of a hard winter and a soaking, incessantly wet spring, instead herd deaths are claimed by the wizards who invent these projections as coming from stress and starvation owning to overpopulation, thus giving a reason for urging even more shooting.
To dwell just a little on herd stability, in every part of this globe until humans interfered with the balance, all species depended upon an evolved herd number which would ensure survival for future breeding after hard times.
Well, it's getting that way in some parts of the hills that because of a mandate to shoot-shoot-shoot, the hills will not hold enough hind scent to attract travelling stags - that is if they are not shot in their far-off historical wintering grounds because the wintering grounds have been determined as being overpopulated.
After the years in which various parts of Scotland became more accessible, large stands of valuable timber were extracted for various uses including the war efforts.
This was a follow-on of a once heavier population using timber for fuel - then the incessant muirburn in aid of the sheep barons and the wool trade. It was not the deer which denuded the hills, but they did supplant the sheep to an extent after the wool trade slumped and the Victorian for deer stalking came into being.
I know the frustration of having my garden walls breached by big, cross bred sheep, and I also know the frustration of having bambi leap the fences and do the same, but deer make for more selective grazers and they move about, whilst sheep will stand and strip a place to the roots, urinating and defacating on the ground they graze upon.
Deer also complement cattle for healthy grazing and turf regeneration.
But this is all general knowledge. All I would like to see is the deer being given due respect and consideration and not being used as a tool in order to fulfill blinkered ambitions.
TWEED ! HEAVY, SOGGY, RASPING, 'ORRIBLE stuff ! Give me my deerhunter trousers any time.
ecoman
Well-Known Member
Morning thoughts on 'collateral damage'.
Hobbling out to the workshop this morning, (you do that with a broken bone in your ankle - and there are some who might wish it was in my neck), I set my head down into my collar against the weather coming in from the S. West - that endlessly returning chill of rain in the wind - and wondered briefly on the hardy animals which inhabit these places. At least I could get out of it and enjoy my morning cup of tea.
What a potmess this situation is, regarding the deer. I was spoiled in that I lived and worked all of my deer working life within the boundaries of a peninsula which largely contained both wintering and summering grounds for stags and hinds, and the fact was that the hinds had no reason to depart from their year-round hefted areas whilst the well-regulated stags had no reason to leave either. In those days I could look at a certain patch of hill face and know - for instance - that there would be between twenty five and thirty mature stags lounging about, whilst a quarter of a mile away there would be another group of younger staggies, from two years old up to about seven. With the cull we were doing then there was a decade or two of relative stability, but things do change; it's a planetary fact.
Messaging to and fro takes a lot of time - even with my relative and temporary disability which allows me to do little else for the time being - and the subject being covered by Bambislayer is hugely complex, would take a big book - and a whole new civilisation of non-biased humans to work it out.
Peter Fraser came in along with the SGA when to all intents and purposes the stalkers and keepers of Scotland had no defense, no one to back them, and the institutions which they joined in the hopes of receiving support turned out largely to be career-minded toothless tigers whilst their employers preferred to remain quietly in the background, reaping the benefits if there were any but having a safety exit of non-involvement if there was any political backlash.
This strategy was successful until the Scottish parliament was instated and unfriendly eyes indicated that private land ownership was viewed as a political incorrectness, and it is in this slot that I might comment that assertions of Peter's emotional involvement in deer matters might be weighed against the socialist motivated incursions of land approved by that new governing body, fueled by what ? whipped-up 'Braveheart' illusions to those in the Scottish midlands of a freedom for all, by those who have an ambition to rule, but do not have the first clue about what makes the land tick north of Perth, or inland from the parts of the East Coast which serve the oil rigs.
Politics and sectarianism, historical grudges and hatreds, past injustice by those landlords who were horrible to their tenants, and in turn, tenants who were well treated by who bit the hand that fed them. In some sectors there were and still are ingrained racial hatreds and these all affect our society, unfortunately erupting to influence the workings of the deer world , and the deer are pawns in the game.
It was not long after a session I had with some aquaijntances who were banging on about 'the privileges class having the money to shoot and fish', that I sat in an airport and watched a Glasgow couple dressed in shell suits, carrying skiis and bickering like crows on a chimneystack. My wife and I were heading out to stay with friends for a couple of weeks - on the cheap and as a return favour - but here was the same gallous couple returning from their resort on the same flight as us and it occurred to me that they too might complain about 'the privileged classes' but that they had possibly - between their drinking and other entertainments - because they were exhibiting drink on both occasions, spent about the same amount of money on their holiday as a deer shooting client would on a trip to a letting estate - especially if it was to hinds.
I'm sorry - this is long-winded but we all know what we mean when we send messages to and fro, but not everyone can express themselves and there are misunderstandings.
Peter has a good and honest heart. He came from the land and he was not trained to public speaking nor with the skills to manipulate words 'off the cuff' in public, and it is unfortunately easy to make such people look much less than they are, especially if they do not have a plummy accent', (and mine is terrible mix of mongerel so I have no chance).
He had the courage to stand up and be counted, and it appears, the good fortune to have an employer who gave him free license to do so in a time when we were still largely under the yoke of having to watch ourselves and not have opinions outside our station. (I clearly recall a certain landlord stating vehemently at a meeting I attended that it should be forest owners only and not their staff who should attend such meetings).
If, however, it is felt that Peter has outlived his tenure as spokesman for Scottish deer, then those who feel strongly about it should put themselves forward to the SGA and volunteer to take up the yoke; and I say this in all fairness as it HAS been mentioned and it appears - seconded by silent agreement from others - but remember ! "Heavy is the head that wears the crown". When you get up there it ain't so easy as it looks.
Stags wintering on far-away estates is no new thing, In fact it is an historical fact, and the break-out of stags from the Conon area near the East coast directly affects the knock-on affect of travelling stags which arrive heading towards the river Ling and Dornie on the West Coast, but in the old days estates were so large that they absorbed the wintering damage and subsequent stag movement and it was an accepted fact of life.
Now-a-days many estates have been split into smaller parcels of land and it is unfortunate that only the land divisions have been changed - on maps. The historical and habitual movement of the beasts has not altered, so this results in a smaller estate suffering - the land area which always hosts the wintering beasts.
In this case - it does not indicate that the deer are pests or that any one person is being dishonest, it just highlights the fact that NOT ONE IOTA of taxpayers money goes into a pot dealing with our nation's deer apart from the one which serves to pay contract stalker wages and ammo. It would be nice if this problem was recognised and reparation made - much in the same manner as boar damage is dealt-with in Germany. Deer are a natural resource which are taken for granted because they are there - they breed for free - there are no vets bills - and no fodder bills out of the public purse. At the same time deer have attracted in tourists - both shooting and viewing - and they occupy areas which are otherwise useful for what ? Telly-Tubby wind farms ? Fields of wheat and tatties ? Maybe all that valuable whisky from the hill burns which Mr. Salmond seems to imagine we are going to survive-on - because we have little else North of Stirling, but heather and rock. Closing down just about everything in a country in aid of tourism produces the stale vista of locals turning into what the Americans know as 'cigar store Indians'. The has-beens with nothing but tired old stories of the past.
Fish farming is in decline - our West coast is in the stages of being fished out because of myriads of crab - lobster - prawn and squat lobster pots laid over one another in places so that no one dare lift a fleet in order to clean it in case someone else comes along and occupies that spot. Boats were limited to so many fleets of pots - so all the clever owners did was to buy more boats along with their pot allowance.
Is Scotland going to leech off the European bank ? Greece has already had a go and many Irish are fleeing to more favourable parts of the world because the Euro days are past for them as well. If that was the plan then we have knocked on the door after the bees departed with the honey.
Sheep - for instance - are one of the most heavily subsidised beasts in Scotland, and their needs are served at every turn, but the only public money going towards our national largest wild animal is spent on the killing of them.
Now - where is this alternative land use which is envisaged ? Along the route from Perth to Inverness there are some nice stretches which could be further fenced and afforested - particularly from Aviemore to Kingussie - then designated as a beaver reserve as much of the lower lying, riverside land is bog in any case.
The small farmers on either side of the A9 can like it or lump it. If they can work along side the beavers then good luck to them, if not they are merely collateral damage.
What a frightful and arrogant scenario, but this is a reality of what constantly lies in store for some apprehensive deer forest managers - stalkers and their families.
Do I need to go on ? Nothing will be solved until the mess in the pot is cleared out and along with it the lies, skulduggery, backdoor dealings and career bias. Promises are made to be broken. Referendums are carried out to be ignored when they do not suit the preferred results required by government - as are the old handshake deals which men used to honour, and I have witnessed some meetings people - from both sides of the table - depart the venue with looks on their faces like Mr.Bean at his wily worst.
Let's not argue amongst ourselves but direct our energies towards a viable deer solution which is not based on hypotheses and projections which might only come to pass in fifty years. The solutions need to apply to those who live in the present as well
Hobbling out to the workshop this morning, (you do that with a broken bone in your ankle - and there are some who might wish it was in my neck), I set my head down into my collar against the weather coming in from the S. West - that endlessly returning chill of rain in the wind - and wondered briefly on the hardy animals which inhabit these places. At least I could get out of it and enjoy my morning cup of tea.
What a potmess this situation is, regarding the deer. I was spoiled in that I lived and worked all of my deer working life within the boundaries of a peninsula which largely contained both wintering and summering grounds for stags and hinds, and the fact was that the hinds had no reason to depart from their year-round hefted areas whilst the well-regulated stags had no reason to leave either. In those days I could look at a certain patch of hill face and know - for instance - that there would be between twenty five and thirty mature stags lounging about, whilst a quarter of a mile away there would be another group of younger staggies, from two years old up to about seven. With the cull we were doing then there was a decade or two of relative stability, but things do change; it's a planetary fact.
Messaging to and fro takes a lot of time - even with my relative and temporary disability which allows me to do little else for the time being - and the subject being covered by Bambislayer is hugely complex, would take a big book - and a whole new civilisation of non-biased humans to work it out.
Peter Fraser came in along with the SGA when to all intents and purposes the stalkers and keepers of Scotland had no defense, no one to back them, and the institutions which they joined in the hopes of receiving support turned out largely to be career-minded toothless tigers whilst their employers preferred to remain quietly in the background, reaping the benefits if there were any but having a safety exit of non-involvement if there was any political backlash.
This strategy was successful until the Scottish parliament was instated and unfriendly eyes indicated that private land ownership was viewed as a political incorrectness, and it is in this slot that I might comment that assertions of Peter's emotional involvement in deer matters might be weighed against the socialist motivated incursions of land approved by that new governing body, fueled by what ? whipped-up 'Braveheart' illusions to those in the Scottish midlands of a freedom for all, by those who have an ambition to rule, but do not have the first clue about what makes the land tick north of Perth, or inland from the parts of the East Coast which serve the oil rigs.
Politics and sectarianism, historical grudges and hatreds, past injustice by those landlords who were horrible to their tenants, and in turn, tenants who were well treated by who bit the hand that fed them. In some sectors there were and still are ingrained racial hatreds and these all affect our society, unfortunately erupting to influence the workings of the deer world , and the deer are pawns in the game.
It was not long after a session I had with some aquaijntances who were banging on about 'the privileges class having the money to shoot and fish', that I sat in an airport and watched a Glasgow couple dressed in shell suits, carrying skiis and bickering like crows on a chimneystack. My wife and I were heading out to stay with friends for a couple of weeks - on the cheap and as a return favour - but here was the same gallous couple returning from their resort on the same flight as us and it occurred to me that they too might complain about 'the privileged classes' but that they had possibly - between their drinking and other entertainments - because they were exhibiting drink on both occasions, spent about the same amount of money on their holiday as a deer shooting client would on a trip to a letting estate - especially if it was to hinds.
I'm sorry - this is long-winded but we all know what we mean when we send messages to and fro, but not everyone can express themselves and there are misunderstandings.
Peter has a good and honest heart. He came from the land and he was not trained to public speaking nor with the skills to manipulate words 'off the cuff' in public, and it is unfortunately easy to make such people look much less than they are, especially if they do not have a plummy accent', (and mine is terrible mix of mongerel so I have no chance).
He had the courage to stand up and be counted, and it appears, the good fortune to have an employer who gave him free license to do so in a time when we were still largely under the yoke of having to watch ourselves and not have opinions outside our station. (I clearly recall a certain landlord stating vehemently at a meeting I attended that it should be forest owners only and not their staff who should attend such meetings).
If, however, it is felt that Peter has outlived his tenure as spokesman for Scottish deer, then those who feel strongly about it should put themselves forward to the SGA and volunteer to take up the yoke; and I say this in all fairness as it HAS been mentioned and it appears - seconded by silent agreement from others - but remember ! "Heavy is the head that wears the crown". When you get up there it ain't so easy as it looks.
Stags wintering on far-away estates is no new thing, In fact it is an historical fact, and the break-out of stags from the Conon area near the East coast directly affects the knock-on affect of travelling stags which arrive heading towards the river Ling and Dornie on the West Coast, but in the old days estates were so large that they absorbed the wintering damage and subsequent stag movement and it was an accepted fact of life.
Now-a-days many estates have been split into smaller parcels of land and it is unfortunate that only the land divisions have been changed - on maps. The historical and habitual movement of the beasts has not altered, so this results in a smaller estate suffering - the land area which always hosts the wintering beasts.
In this case - it does not indicate that the deer are pests or that any one person is being dishonest, it just highlights the fact that NOT ONE IOTA of taxpayers money goes into a pot dealing with our nation's deer apart from the one which serves to pay contract stalker wages and ammo. It would be nice if this problem was recognised and reparation made - much in the same manner as boar damage is dealt-with in Germany. Deer are a natural resource which are taken for granted because they are there - they breed for free - there are no vets bills - and no fodder bills out of the public purse. At the same time deer have attracted in tourists - both shooting and viewing - and they occupy areas which are otherwise useful for what ? Telly-Tubby wind farms ? Fields of wheat and tatties ? Maybe all that valuable whisky from the hill burns which Mr. Salmond seems to imagine we are going to survive-on - because we have little else North of Stirling, but heather and rock. Closing down just about everything in a country in aid of tourism produces the stale vista of locals turning into what the Americans know as 'cigar store Indians'. The has-beens with nothing but tired old stories of the past.
Fish farming is in decline - our West coast is in the stages of being fished out because of myriads of crab - lobster - prawn and squat lobster pots laid over one another in places so that no one dare lift a fleet in order to clean it in case someone else comes along and occupies that spot. Boats were limited to so many fleets of pots - so all the clever owners did was to buy more boats along with their pot allowance.
Is Scotland going to leech off the European bank ? Greece has already had a go and many Irish are fleeing to more favourable parts of the world because the Euro days are past for them as well. If that was the plan then we have knocked on the door after the bees departed with the honey.
Sheep - for instance - are one of the most heavily subsidised beasts in Scotland, and their needs are served at every turn, but the only public money going towards our national largest wild animal is spent on the killing of them.
Now - where is this alternative land use which is envisaged ? Along the route from Perth to Inverness there are some nice stretches which could be further fenced and afforested - particularly from Aviemore to Kingussie - then designated as a beaver reserve as much of the lower lying, riverside land is bog in any case.
The small farmers on either side of the A9 can like it or lump it. If they can work along side the beavers then good luck to them, if not they are merely collateral damage.
What a frightful and arrogant scenario, but this is a reality of what constantly lies in store for some apprehensive deer forest managers - stalkers and their families.
Do I need to go on ? Nothing will be solved until the mess in the pot is cleared out and along with it the lies, skulduggery, backdoor dealings and career bias. Promises are made to be broken. Referendums are carried out to be ignored when they do not suit the preferred results required by government - as are the old handshake deals which men used to honour, and I have witnessed some meetings people - from both sides of the table - depart the venue with looks on their faces like Mr.Bean at his wily worst.
Let's not argue amongst ourselves but direct our energies towards a viable deer solution which is not based on hypotheses and projections which might only come to pass in fifty years. The solutions need to apply to those who live in the present as well
In general the article is not bad. I think it raises some good points. I think that trying to reforest areas of the highlands is important in maintaining high levels of biodiversity and although the amount of carbon sequestration that occurs through scotlands woodlands in very small in a global context, it still has an effect on the immediate environment. Deer numbers in Scotland are far too high and the negative impacts of this are well studies (Soil nitrogen levels reducing reproduction of plant and tree species, over browsing on saplings and threat to human life through road traffic accidents are all issues that should be considered. I full accept that stalking is vital to the highland economy and think that it should continue. I also agree that culling is not the best method of deer control. I am a conservationist myself and advocate the reintroduction of the wolves to scotland. I feel it is a method that should seriously be considered and if implemented then wolf numbers would then be controlled through a hunting season which the estates in the highlands would be responsible for. They would issues the licenses to shoot wolves and receive the full payment from hunters. I am sure that hunters will pay a lot more to shoot a wolf than a deer and this allows for natural regulation of deer populations through predation. While also having enough deer for stalking and increased income through a wolf hunting season.
Just an idea....
Just an idea....
bambislayer
Well-Known Member
Wolf hunting? Have a look at Norway ( a country with a far bigger % of hunters than the UK) or even Alaska.
Where it is unconceivable that the UK populous could live with wolves, it is beyond all possibilities that they would ever be hunted!
In order for wolves to fully maintain deer herds, surely they would have to be let to get to their max limit. If not they would just be a showcase species.
I do think that it is a bad state of affairs that we as a nation struggle to live alongside or manage anything bigger than a hamster but the wolf is just out of question within the UK.
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