Sharpshooter

As a major row breaks out in Scotland about the numbers of deer culled on an estate, the old certainties are being turned on their head

In the febrile politics swirling around deer in Scotland, there used to be a single point of clarity: sporting estates were A Bad Thing. At least, this was according to the BBC, many Scottish politicians and the nature conservation establishment. You could argue about the finer points of land reform, but there was overarching agreement among the so-called “progressives” that the owners of sporting estates were the enemy.

Now, however, the old certainty has been rocked by a clash between Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the North Assynt estate. Nothing exceptional in argybargy between a Highland estate and SNH, you might say. But this ain’t any old estate.

North Assynt estate, in the north-west Highlands, happens to be owned by a trust run by a group of local crofters — a group much favoured by land reformers. And these local crofters have accused SNH of being heavy-handed. Indeed, the chairman of the Assynt Crofters Trust reportedly said SNH was “a quango gone mad”.

When the local crofters banded together to buy the 21,300-acre estate almost 25 years ago, they were regarded as heroes of land reform, leading the way forward. The estate (then called North Lochinver) had been split into smaller lots for sale and the local community was worried that these would be snapped up by one or more absentee landowners. So local people banded together, formed a trust and launched a buyout. They had massive political support. The likes of Alex Salmond and the late Charles Kennedy got stuck in on their behalf.

An offer of £300,000 — considerably less than the original asking price — was accepted. Of this, £130,000 was donated by 800 members of the public, while £20,000 was donated by SNH.

Yet now SNH and the crofters are exchanging verbal broadsides. The row is about deer numbers. SNH accuses the estate of having failed to kill enough hinds last season, achieving a cull of 56 instead of the target of 86. SNH says ancient woodland is being damaged by the deer and is threatening to exercise its power to impose a cull. The crofters are resisting this and say they will go to prison if necessary. They think SNH is overstating the problem and that such a heavy cull would damage the estate’s stalking business. They say they are taking other measures to protect the woodland, such as fencing.

The irony is that here are local people, who care about their land and their deer, facing down a powerful nature conservation quango based far away. How’s that for turning the old certainties upside down?

“SNH says ancient woodland is being damaged by the deer and is threatening to impose a cull”

Antis’ recruiting sergeant

Just imagine, if you can, that there was no illegal persecution of raptors. Wouldn’t shooting be so much better off in terms of public and political acceptance? Yes, of course there would still be antis who would still try to damage our cause in any way they can, regardless of the facts.

But in the absence of juicy raptor persecution stories to milk, the attacks on shooting would have much less traction with the wider public. There will always be those who oppose shooting for various reasons. But raptor persecution is the antis’ recruiting sergeant. Dealing with the negative publicity it spawns soaks up a huge amount of resource, credibility and goodwill that could otherwise be used to promote the benefits of our sport.