For most of Scotland’s population there’s little that’s ‘glorious’ about August 12th – the day instead stands for cruelty to animals and social malaise. For, as many sections of the media would have you believe, while Joe McPublic sits staring at his screen or doodling on his desktop in the Central Belt, the Highland hilltops are swarming with toffs armed with triple-barrelled names and doublebarrelled shotguns, intent on blasting anything with feathers that has the temerity to fly. With grouse costing about £150 per brace to shoot and (on 12th August, at least) fetching up to £1000 a brace in top London restaurants, it is easy to see why the pursuit of this heatherbased gamebird is subject to so much grousing and so many grumbles and gripes.

Yet, while your average punter might need to rob a bank, remortgage their house and sell at least one of their kidneys to experience a day’s driven grouse shooting, there are thousands that enjoy the benefi ts of moorland management on a regular basis for free.

While many are aware of some fringe benefi ts of grouse shooting, the full extent of the twist in the tale of the twelfth was made clear at a meeting of the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), just before this year’s season began. ‘Scotland’s public,’ observed Ian McCall, the Trust’s Director for Scotland, ‘rightly value and enjoy their heather-clad hills for their scenic and recreational splendours, as do visitors from overseas. Yet, few are aware of the fact that these are managed habitats created and cared for by Scotland’s shepherds, keepers and sporting managers.’

Picking up grouse.

Heather moorland

For, he continued, it is largely due to shooting interests that Scotland still boasts some 75 per cent of Europe’s – and a large proportion of the world’s – heather moorland. And thanks in part to the application of innovative methods for managing our uplands, and in part due to good weather during the birds’ hatching period, 2009 is shaping up to be an excellent season for a number of Scotland’s moors. And a good year for grouse, explains McCall, means more money is available to invest in their habitat – a habitat voted second to none in a recent survey of tourists in Scotland.

A visit to the GWCT Chairman’s own moor is an ample illustration of the advantages that sport-driven investment can have on the land. Indeed, when Robbie Douglas-Miller bought Horseupcleugh in 2005, this area of the Lammermuirs had been managed purely for cattle and sheep. Without the attentions of a keeper, he explained, overgrazing and alternative land management strategies were causing the heather to gradually be replaced by rank grass, bracken and the occasional awkward and ugly stand of the lugubrious Sitka spruce. Yet, four years on, heading into the estate’s isolated hillsides, the regeneration of heather is clear to see – the plant’s purple flowers providing a welcome splash of colour in an otherwise decidedly dreich August day.

By reducing the sheep from 1500 to 570, burning 10 per cent of the old rank heather, spraying bracken, managing vermin and felling the spruce trees, Douglas-Miller has begun to restore ‘the mosaic habitat so important for grouse.’ And, in the process, as well as a ‘very significant increase’ in grouse numbers, he’s been delighted to witness a surge in the populations of curlews, snipe, golden plover and lapwings.

Guests from Ardeonaig Hotel head out on Ardtalnaig Estate.

What’s it worth

What’s more, Horseupcleugh, he argues, is also more financially productive than when used purely as farmland – while sheep numbers might be down, grouse are worth £75 per bird shot, he points out. As a result, a mere two let days would be sufficient to pay for his full-time keeper, Ian Elliot, and all the resources the keeper requires. And, the capital value of the estate should increase with the numbers of grouse.

While, admittedly, not every upland landowner has the financial resources of Douglas-Miller at their disposal, a system that – once established – pays for itself, provides extra employment, increases biodiversity, restores one of Scotland’s most iconic landscapes and isn’t overly dependent on government subsidies is a model that few can refute. And when you look at the broad-ranging list of advantages that come from such systems of moorland management then surely allowing a wealthy minority to shoot a sustainable surplus of gamebirds in is but a tiny price to pay. Whether keen shots or not, maybe we should all raise a glass to the glorious twelfth.

fieldfacts

Ardtalnaig Estate, Perthshire. Tel: 01567 820404 Horseupcleugh Estate, Longformacus, Nr Duns, Berwickshire