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The saying, ‘A deer from the hill, a salmon from the river and a tree from the wood’ describes the traditional entitlement of every Highlander.
It is sad indeed that early in the 21st century not one of these can be taken legally without complying with the mind-bending rules and regulations of a bureaucracy apparently determined to extinguish the very sports it purports to regulate.
This at a time when every year more people are turning to the countryside for sport, relaxation and pleasure. A recent survey, conducted on a large estate in the north-east Highlands, showed that camping, tourism, bird-watching, salmon fishing, deer stalking and grouse shooting brought over £4,000 a day to that small area alone. Overall the value of field sports to the Scottish economy is estimated to exceed £200 million a year, yet the industry is in difficulty. Why? The reasons are straightforward - excessive interference by government agencies, landlords thirled to Scottish Natural Heritage grants unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them, and a massive reduction in wildlife through poor agricultural husbandry.
A few years ago many more people lived and worked in the Scottish countryside than now. However, those responsible then for its welfare were of a different breed. Gone are the farmers, gamekeepers and shepherds who were schooled and lived out their working lives in the same glen, hefted to their hill like some old hind and excellent naturalists with a practical knowledge of the habits of deer, salmon and grouse. They met perhaps only once or twice a year. No reams of paper changed hands, no maps were pored over, the word ‘management’ did not enter their vocabulary, yet golden eagles, grouse and black-game nested and produced young; deer, foxes, hedgehogs and sheep bred and survived and pine, birch and oak forests flourished in harmony with everything around them.
