from Sunday Herald, 14 June 2009
Chaps with guns and tweeds like bagging stags. But they only do it for three or four months a year, and that’s how they want it to stay.
So when the Scottish government launches a proposal tomorrow to abandon the traditional close season for shooting stags, it will ruffle landowners’ feathers. But it will please environmentalists, some of whom regard deer as the plague, rather than the monarch, of the glen.
Arguments over managing Scotland’s deer are as old as the hills. Over the last 50 years the number roaming the slopes and forests have doubled - or even trebled - to approaching a million animals.
Landowners have been accused of keeping the numbers artificially high so that there are plenty to be shot at by paying visitors. But the beasts have become so prolific they are wrecking the environment - eating saplings, destabilising the landscape and stunting the growth of native forests.
The government’s Deer Commission for Scotland has identified 63 large areas across Scotland where trampling or grazing by too many deer is causing damage. They include Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond, Ben Lawers, Glencoe, Rannoch Moor and the Cairngorms.
In an attempt to tackle the problems, ministers are now proposing a series of changes to the way deer are managed. The proposals will be contained in a consultation paper on reforming wildlife and natural environment laws to be published on Monday.
The Sunday Herald understands that the main change will be the introduction of an obligation for landowners to “manage deer sustainably”. There will also be back-up powers to force them to cull deer if voluntary measures fail.
A new registration system is planned to oblige potential shooters to prove their practical skills. It is hoped that this will improve animal welfare by improving practice and accuracy.
But the proposal that will create the biggest fuss will be the one to give ministers powers to alter or abandon the close seasons restricting shooting at certain times of year. At the moment for example, male red deer cannot be shot between 21 October and the 30 June.
Ministers are now contemplating phasing this out, as well as reducing the close season for female deer. One aim is to make deer culls easier and more efficient.
“There is no biological reason that we can see to support the continuation of a close season for male deer,” said Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of land management at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland.
“If the season is to be removed, then an allied statutory deer management planning system should avoid any risk of over-exploitation of stags. We support a system of statutory deer management planning in order to help deliver sustainable deer management in the public interest.”
According to Orr-Ewing, some progress had been made in reducing the damage caused by deer. “However more still needs to be done,” he argued. “Deer densities managed according to best ecological advice is key to achieving sustainable management.”
But Finlay Clark, secretary of the landowners’ Association of Deer Management Groups, disagreed. “The close season for male animals currently affords welfare protection and helps prevent over exploitation,” he said.
“Wintering stags often congregate in traditional low lying areas where they need shelter and peace to recover after the rut. Stags at this time of year are easily shot with little economic value and the concern has to be that they are shot in large numbers with animals stressed when they are at their weakest.”
John Milne, chairman of the Deer Commission for Scotland, argued that the government’s proposals would strengthen collaborative deer management. “The decision as to when and how many deer should be shot would be firmly placed with local deer managers,” he said.
“Scotland needs to make the most from its natural assets. Deer are a key part of those assets, and require a modern legal framework.”
ABOLISHING THE CLOSE SEASON FOR SHOOTING DEER
For:
Mike Daniels, the chief scientific officer of the John Muir Trust, which campaigns to protect wild land, supports the removal of the close season for male deer. “There are no welfare grounds for having this in place and the removal of the close season will allow us to manage deer more effectively throughout the year,” he says.
“The failings of the current deer management system to deliver public objectives are widely recognised. Statutory deer management plans are needed to bring deer into line with other natural resources such as salmon or water, where a voluntary approach is unable to deliver the public interest.”
Against:
Colin McClean, the wildlife manager at Glen Tanar estate on Deeside, is opposed to the removal of the close season. “This will mean that stags can be shot anywhere, all year round without any protection,” he says.
“It will lead to over-exploitation of male deer but also under-exploitation of female deer. Scotland’s deer population will end up less economically valuable but will still be growing...Scotland’s nature loving people now need to defend a national icon....Removal of close seasons is detrimental to all interests and must not become law.”
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