UKH

In reply to Slugain Howff: As usual our wonderful government will do SFA to avoid upsetting the shooting estates.

Follow the money....

Sx

In reply to Slugain Howff:

Fenn trap screwed to a fence-post probably, with a bit of bunny innards on it. Scumbags

In reply to Slugain Howff:

I wonder if the satellite data shows the route by which the bird travelled to the place where it was found?

It's a f*cking disgrace. I don't know if it's just one landowner in the area, but the Angus glens do seem to have a disproportionately high number of raptor killings.

In reply to Alan Taylor:

Is that why. I can't see the SNP being particularly close to large landowners. Is it not more lack of imagination? "Stick" approaches are never really going to work as it is so easy to get away with it - even when birds are tagged apparently. Wouldn't some sort of reward e.g tax breaks, for having eagles and general biodiversity on an estate be more effective?

In reply to tony:

Agreed, massive land reform required. This is a disgrace as is and was the persecution of wildcats etc.

"Sporting" estates are bad for the land and promote a barren wasteland of low biodiversity. The employers, not just the individuals, need to be held responsible for this.

In reply to Slugain Howff: Thanks for posting that. If theres an address I can write to that would have any influence I would be more than keen!

In reply to Saor Alba:


At least some do. In the borders yesterday and walked past probably 50, apparently legal, traps for mammals (stoats?). Basically large mousetraps in a tunnel. Also a number of large bird traps. The landscape seemed to be supporting whatever mammals these were, a very few sheep, even fewer grouse and otherwise grass and heather, yet the landowner clearly thought this was too biodiverse!

In reply to Saor Alba:

Word sometimes fail me about how utterly disgraceful the human race sometime shows itself to be.

I wonder what some of these utter pricks would say when you raised the issue of rhino or elephant killings for horns and tusks or the poor tiger whose bones are ground for the f*cking Chinese middle class. The would be mostly outraged, I would say.

Maybe they should then look in the mirror because in my book this is just as bad, even more so when you consider that the Brits are suposed to be a bit more enlightened. Its all about profit.

Why dont we, as a human race, simply level all forests, poison and fish to death our seas and through awful levels of pollution, lay waste to the skies too whilst we are at it. Oh, sorry, that's exactly what we are doing, no longer in slow motion.

I despise hearing about this stuff, make my blood boil.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

Without land reform we will always be in this situation. Imagine the Grants went bankrupt and sold Rothiemurchus - the new owner, unregulated and unaccountable, could do anything they like.

Until the value of the land is measured in more than how many deer or birds are there to be shot for entertainment this situation will continue. Land ownership by the few is one of the cornerstones of the British State (I don't wish to divert from the eagle incident by saying this).

In reply to Saor Alba: Yet the lot in Edinburgh do nothing to prevent incidents like this happening. Far too many of these crimes go unpunished and ytou can't blame London for that.

In reply to Alan Taylor:

I'm not blaming London. I am blaming the landowners.

In reply to Alan Taylor:
Much as though I don't normally side with Saor politics, the Scottish government did change teh law so that employers/landowners could also be prosecuted alongside thier keepers.

Where as south of the border unless there is evidence of direct complicity in the crime the estate workers face the music, while the landowners get the terrible inconvienence of having to do a round of job interviews........ to find the 'right chap'...........to face the music next time.

In reply to ScraggyGoat:

Well said. Whilst related on a larger scale, the issue of killing animals is not one of blaming a city, as Alan would have you believe.

I finished reading "The Dark Mile" by Iain Mackay recently. In that there is a chapter on the record of a professional stalker and some time poacher. This is not much more than a hundred years ago and he kills thousands of stags, wildcats, foxes, eagles and so on.

We live in more enlightened times but the remains of this approach still live on and only a move to value land in a holistic sense as opposed to the amount of sport available will change that.

In reply to Saor Alba: I'm interested. I've shot, stalked, climbed, walked etc over Scotland for 25 years. I'd love to see the land maintained better for everybodby's benefit. Where do u draw the lines...?

U can't be Mugabe. U can't be the Duke of Sutherland (19thC). Where do you get all the money to encourage landowners to allow "input" that might allow biodiversity to thrive alongside their legitimate estate interests?

In reply to James Gordon:

I think there have to be some guidelines/rules/laws around what is allowed when an estate is purchased. This might be around the new owner having to take biodiversity issues, housing issues, deer numbers, employment and so on into account before the get a license to cull deer or shoot birds. The days of a free for all have to end.

Clearly this would have to be a sliding scale depending on the size or location of estate and adaptable.

In reply to James Gordon:>

My great-great-great-grandfather was the gamekeeper to the Duke of Sutherland on his Lilleshall Hall estate. I've seen his shooting logs from back then, and they were somewhat trigger-happy.

As for the biodiversity, the sad fact is that as predation was wiped out by man (wolves etc.), then man therefore has to fix that idiocy by managing the deer population for their own sake, as well as the income. However, killing eagles just to protect the birds for shooting is somewhat vile and unnecessary.

In reply to Saor Alba:

Fully agree with you there in principle, although a deer cull is usually a necessary part of conservation management these days and estates actually "under-cull" to keep numbers high for their punters, contributing to over grazing issues etc. Currently, numbers shot are set in agreement with the local deer management groups, who get their numbers sanctioned by SNH. SHN can intervene if they think the numbers are way off, but they usually sit in favour of the status quo.

However, the basic problem is the same-estates being managed as playgrounds for the rich not for biodiversity, jobs and the community. There is a perception in areas where fieldsports are dominant that they support communities with jobs, but more jobs can be created by conservation management and wildlife tourism with a bit of imagination.

In reply to TryfAndy:

Let's be clear about this - Deer numbers are kept artificially high on sporting estates through feeding and very little control. That's why no trees grow in the "deer forests".

In reply to Snoweider:

Agreed, see my post above. SNH need to get much tougher on estates and take the deer numbers down dramatically.

Hardly any jobs come from sporting estates as demonstrated by the SGA's own figures.

What we have here is a cultural situation and legacy of the victorian era, monarch of the glen etc. Also, pretty much the entire Highlands is "owned" (on paper only) by people who don't live here. That must change through legislation and community ownership.

In reply to Snoweider:

Do we know if the numbers actually shot are the same (more or less) as the numbers set in quotas? In other words, is there a body-count which is tallied against the quota?

In reply to tony:

As far as I know, there will be counts and observations from the Red Deer Commission, now part of SNH I think. I don't know how the quotas get arrived at though.

In reply to tony: With eagle/raptor killings isn't the main concern around attempts to increase grouse numbers, rather than the excess deer population?

In reply to Saor Alba:

Around here there is an annual deer count on the four main estates in the North of the island, carried out by estate staff, local volunteers and sometimes SNH staff come along too. The Deer management group is made up of representatives from these estates, some of whom are concerned with conservation to a greater or lesser extent(NTS, FCS), and some who have commercial interests (Arran Estates, Dougarie Estate). The deer management group set agreed quotas, which I understand are submitted to SNH who approve them. The numbers culled are tightly managed, as they are slaughtered and fed in to the food chain. Since Foot and Mouth very detailed records are kept and each beast is inspected with its own paper trail. I doubt very much that the ever kill much more than the quota on commercial estates anyway, due to the pressure to keep the herd as large as possible.

In reply to MG:

Yes- red deer interests are not at all affected by raptor presence, even in the mind of the most paranoid game keepers. That may explain why in this area (Arran), where we have no commercial grouse shooting, our raptors are doing well while their success is patchy in other areas of Scotland.

In reply to MG:

Yes, but it's all of a piece to do with estate management. At the moment, most estate management works in favour of the rights of the shooter, whatever they're shooting and against the natural environment.

In reply to MG: Indeed - see yesterday's news piece on UKH, where the RSPB say exactly that

In reply to Slugain Howff:
I disagree with the whole idea of 'sporting' estates and the notion that somebody can own such huge areas of land. The day that I phone up an estate to seek permission to walk in my own country will be the first. I accept not all landowners are the absolute disgrace that this case highlights but I feel it's time to say goodbye to these hangovers from Victorian times. From what I've observed there are a lot of fat rich bastards shooting deer for fun. There is no sport in using telescopic sights on a grazing static animal. For a so called forward looking country the sporting estate shows up just how backwards and subservient this country still is.

In reply to drmarten: I understand people will have different viewpoints. The thing is that most of the sentiment expressed above only perpetuates the status quo.

If histrionic and sometimes ill informed statements portray it as one "side" against another and narrow minded bigotry/ holier-than-thou personal standpoints on class, money and how people get their kicks are not set aside....then the groups who need to get on the same rope, will not.

I know several stalkers, ghillies, landowners, factors, tennents, communities etc. I've spoken with them over many years.

There is much more to discuss but in the interim gobbing off on UKC is important (for once) because if opinion is constructive then some of the ideas discussed could be implemented.

In reply to James Gordon:

Not sure what you are referring to re bigotry but agree it's not about sides. Unfortunately it will go that way sometimes though. Ultimately I think the wind is blowing in the direction of more community ownership and away from purely sporting estates, or where sporting interests are the dominant feature.

In reply to Saor Alba: I think that community ownership and hopefully the encouragement of healthy, happy communities who respect and look after their land is absolutely a goal to be pursued.

I've seen lots of highland villages denuded of the families who lived their for generations with the resulting erosion of heritage. I think if the wealth needed to own estates could be linked to a responsibility to be involved in the local area then that would be a much more constructive use of time than judgement of stalking & shooting.

The bigotry is in pejorative descriptions of the land owners, people who shoot etc. also the implication that patrician estate owners (there are many who are NOT) are unable to empathise with society AND care nothing for the country. Those comments paint their originators in as bad/worse a light than the very people who they attack.

In reply to James Gordon:
I have met stalkers, landowners etc and haven't had any problems - I recall an evening spent in a highland pub having a drink with a head stalker and the good natured ribbing that passed for a grudging acceptance of each other's reasons for being on the hills. It's the signs saying no access that are left up beyond the stalking periods, it's the seasonal employment often used to condone the estates, it's the absent owners and the activities that sparked this thread that put me against the idea of estates. I can't see them continuing in their present form but I also understand those communities who rely on the estate may need something in its place. The landscape and wildlife certainly need something else, if community ownership provides the answer then that is certainly something I'd support, but I simply don't know. My own use of the hills for leisure is certainly not a major issue in the big scheme of things although I'd hope continued free access at all times (in the main) would continue.

In reply to Slugain Howff:

Is it possible the young eagle was caught in a trap designed for something entirely different and the gamekeeper turned up found it and had an "oh sh1t" moment?

(I don't know very much about trapping at all)

In reply to off-duty: The law is apparently very clear on the way traps can be used. They are only permitted to control 'vermin', so they must be covered to prevent other wildlife getting caught - raptors for instance. It's barely conceivable that a gamekeeper could not know this.

In reply to James Gordon:

Agree with what you say but I don't think anyone is being a bigot or talking in anything other than general terms. I don't think anyone has described people who shoot either. No one has said they don't care but I'm fairly comfortable in saying that the owner of Lego, estate north of Glen Moriston, the Malaysian people who own Braulen, the Rausings who own Coignafearn and Corrour, are less important that the people who live there and the land itself.

The point I was making is clear and I wish for more community ownership, they have been successes so far, and look forward to the situation at Pàirc in Lewis being resolved although I doubt one part will be happy.

In reply to Saor Alba:

I was in the Hebrides this summer and it was interesting talking to some of the people there about community buy-outs. North and West Harris are community-owned, while South Harris could be going the same way. South Uist is community-owned but in North Uist, there doesn't seem to be the same desire - the current laird, Earl Granville, seems to be fairly well-liked; he and his family live there and run businesses there, and he generally just lets people get on with things. A few people pointed out that community ownership isn't an end in itself, which is true, of course.

If anyone reading this thread is interested in the Scottish land ownership issue in general - Andy Wightman's The Poor Had No Lawyers is recommended reading; it can be hard going in places but it's a fascinating and very educational bit of work - especially the sections on the Crown Estate and on the attempted sale of The Cuillin by Macleod of Macleod.

In reply to off-duty: dream on

In reply to sheeny:

I haven't got a clue about trapping (as I said) and I was asking to see if someone more well informed could tell me.

It just seems a bit odd to move and dump the body when you could bury it, burn it or hide it, and I wondered whether there was any possibility it could have been accidentally trapped.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

Agreed, the Crown Estate is another matter and one for which the Lib Dems of all people should hang their heads in shame.

In reply to off-duty: on grouse moors keepers remove everything from stoats weasels,foxes to harriers, owls, kestrels, buzzards, peregrines, jackdaws thro poisoning, trapping, shooting its partly peer pressure and pressure for huge bags from landowners.
failure to deliver a good shoot means no job, no house, no references
one answer is to publicise these birds so that as many people as poss know there there not just the select few cos the keepers always know

In reply to sheeny:

I think there is hope as the momentum is clearly away from purely sporting estates to more diverse ones. The CairnGorms Wildcat Project demonstrated successful partnership between game keepers and the conservation groups, which at one time would have been unthinkable.

However last night I was at a talk given by Sir John Lister-Kaye of Aigas who said that wildlife persecution is worse in the Highlands now than at at time he can recall.

In reply to Saor Alba:

A couple of topical and current articles from the BBC Website on land ownership:

"What motivates communities to buy land they live on?", 20/09/12:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-19584402
Possible community buy-out of Tanera Mor in Coigach, 27/09/12:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-19746872