Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Let’s invite the antis
Dee Ward is keen to show the world how his 8,000-acre Rottal Estate in Scotland is being managed with wildlife and biodiversity in mind
One of the greatest pleasures of owning a grouse moor is being able to invite people. Sometimes I send shooting invites, but there are other invitations I send out that matter far more.
I have been a keen Shot all my life, starting with a ‘garden gun’ (57 years ago now) and progressing from there. Things have changed a lot since then and not always for the better. Back then, shooting more 100 pheasants on a driven day was considered ‘big’ and, likewise, shooting 50 brace of grouse on a driven day wasn’t to be sniffed at.
From the mid-1980s and 1990s, things started to change. Shooting was becoming more popular and bigger bags became the norm, in part driven by the prosperity of the 1980s. Just as our endless drive for economic growth has ended up polluting our planet and creating climate change, so in shooting we appear to have lost our way in the endless pursuit for more. It wasn’t always about numbers. It was about being out with friends, spending a day in beautiful surroundings, working the dogs, chatting with beaters, keepers and fellow shooters, and then taking home a brace for the pot.
I was lucky enough in business to be able to buy my own upland estate. At 8,000 acres, it isn’t huge by Scottish standards, but it’s large enough to work at a scale to really benefit wildlife and biodiversity. It is a mix of low ground and heather-clad grouse moor, with a small salmon river running through it. I tried to make the pheasant and partridge shooting pay, but it was a lot of hard work for minimal returns. As I got older, I felt increasingly uncomfortable about releasing so many birds — too many birds, in truth.
Labour of love
The grouse shooting was always my real passion, so in late 2019, on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, I bit the bullet and shut down the low-ground shoot and focused on the moor with my two gamekeepers.
Running an upland estate is a labour of love and I decided that rather than let any more days, I would set up a syndicate of friends to share the costs. Whether it’s a day of 10 birds or 100, they simply love coming out.
I have always loved wildlife and biodiversity, so it came naturally to do a lot of work on the estate with the natural regeneration of trees, native tree planting, river improvements and wetland creation on the low ground. We are lucky to have large wader populations — curlew, oystercatcher, lapwing, golden plover, redshank and snipe — and also species such as black grouse, nesting golden eagles, merlin, peregrines and ring ouzels.
We had been reducing deer numbers for several years, but we redoubled our efforts and fenced the remaining part of the boundary to prevent deer from our neighbours moving into the vacuum. We have reduced our deer density from more than 20 to less than three per square kilometre, which has had a hugely positive impact on heather quality and vegetation in general.
Although ticks remain a problem, we are managing these with our in-hand sheep flock. We have also restored 30 hectares of peatland and blocked grips and ditches, creating more wetland areas for insects that are so critical to young grouse and wader chicks.
Habitat improvements are key for both successful wildlife and game populations, so we have planted a lot more wild bird seed, forage brassica and neeps (for sheep) on the lowground fields, with specific advice from the GWCT to help make it grey partridge-friendly habitat. We are now getting to the point when we will look at small reintroductions of wild greys to try to establish a viable population.
The Angus Glens had good wild grey populations until the early 1990s, so I am convinced that with the right formula we can bring them back.
Improving habitat, planting trees and restoring peatland are all popular actions that attract a lot of support from most environmentalists. An equally important part of the equation — although less popular — is predator control. Proportionate predator control is absolutely vital in maintaining healthy and sustainable populations of ground-nesting birds such as waders or gamebirds. The main culprits for us are stoats, weasels, rats, crows and foxes. It is regrettable that, although the RSPB carries out predator control, it doesn’t promote its benefits to its members, so there is an unrealistic view that nature will simply balance itself.
With the habitat improvements in the low ground, as well as the wetlands and native woodlands
“Whether it’s a day of 10 birds or 100, they simply love coming out”
we have created, we started to notice good numbers of pheasant, teal, mallard, snipe and woodcock. Over the past three years, we have had a lot of successful nests of wild or semi-wild pheasants. For the past two seasons, we have had three shoots that were fantastic mixed days of pheasant, partridge, mallard and teal, with bags of 75 to 110 head on each day.
Transparency
In Scotland, we face grouse shooting being licensed within the next two years and, though there are concerns about how it will work, I believe a good, robust licensing system will strengthen the position of law-abiding estates, while giving a mechanism to penalise those that break the law.
I remain optimistic that a licensing system could work well and allow greater transparency in the workings of grouse moors. That in turn will lead to a greater understanding of the wider benefits well-managed moors deliver, particularly when muirburn is done properly.
Shooting to me is not an end in itself, but more a by-product of sustainable land management. Headlines often focus on big bags, raptor persecution and intensive management, but that reflects the worst of our sector. There is so much great work happening and I believe
“I want to create a wildlife haven and show what we do”