Page 20 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

RED DEER

he wind is straight out
of the north and bites
at my face. Cresting
the whaleback ridge, a
breathtaking panorama
emerges – a raw, wild
Tmoonscape stretching far
beyond a horizon I can barely discern. This
unforgiving landscape is quintessentially
Scottish. It’s the signature landscape of
the Highlands, dominated by hundreds
of thousands of acres of bare moorland,
rock and bog. In front of me lies Inverpolly
Forest, undoubtedly spectacular, but barely
a tree, or even a bush, to be seen. This
is a traditional hunting forest or, more
specifically, a deer hunting forest, which by
definition contains few trees.
In 1851 when celebrated artist Sir Edwin
Landseer depicted a royal stag against the
majesty of the Highlands, he created an
evocative and enduring image of Scotland’s
hills and glens, thereby sealing a tradition in Clockwise from young go in search
which wealthy Victorian industrialists came above: Loch Hope of new territories;
to the Highlands and paid handsomely is just one area regenerating Scots
undergoing a major pines along the
to shoot deer – particularly big trophy
woodland restoration River Feshie;
stags. Approaching two centuries later, project; deer are historically, rich
deer hunting, or stalking, remains at the more likely to be Atlantic oakwood
cultural heart of the Scottish Highlands, seen on roads in was often cleared
May and June, as the for animal grazing.
contributing to land values, providing
jobs and, for many people, binding
rural communities together.
Since the advent of deer forests, the
uniquely Scottish tradition of open hill wish to retain. For those landowners, The ‘deer problem’ isn’t new. Acclaimed
stalking has changed little and the barren deerstalkers, game dealers and paying rifles, ecologist Frank Fraser Darling famously
uplands that cover around 1.5 million red deer and their treeless forests symbolise described the Highlands as a “wet desert”
hectares of Scotland’s wildest country what Scotland looks like. Or rather, what and advised the Red Deer Commission that
remain emblematic of a period that many Scotland should look like. 60,000 might be an optimum population in
With wolves, lynx and bears long Scotland. No fewer than seven government-
gone, red deer have had plenty of time appointed enquiries have sought to address
to proliferate, creating what is routinely ‘the problem’. Yet, despite repeated calls
referred to as the ‘deer problem’. In 1959, for land managers and stalkers to radically
when the Red Deer Commission was reduce deer densities, the numbers in many
created, primarily to address damage to areas remain stubbornly high.
agriculture and forestry, red deer numbers
were estimated at around 150,000. Thirty Heated Highland debate
years later, that figure had doubled. Today, In recent decades, as the impact of
informed estimates hover around 400,000. overgrazing on the ecological health of the
Such a high number of hungry mouths Highlands has become better understood,
impacts not only on ground vegetation and an ideological battle between traditional
emerging woodland, but also on the deer deer managers and those who lament the
themselves. Forced to adapt to a tenuous demise of Scotland’s native woodland – now
life in the open and deprived of access to covering three per cent of its natural range –
their natural woodland habitat, Scotland’s has become a seemingly intractable debate.
hill deer are stunted, many a third smaller Our largest living land mammal is a pawn
than their forest-dwelling cousins. in what has become a political, rather than
The Monarch There are also other costs. Each year in an ecological, dispute. How many deer there
of the Glen, Scotland, 7,000 road accidents are attributed should be (and where) is not so much an
painted by Sir to deer, and an increasing amount of fencing argument over red deer but over different
Edwin Landseer.
is needed to manage their movements. visions for the future of the Highlands.

20 BBC Wildlife December 2018