Scotlands War of The Wilds
I have been doing this job for a very long time, some people think I am lucky that I get paid for a job that many people pay a lot of money to do and that has not been lost with me, I understand that what I do is a privilege and in many ways I am lucky but the work does come with its downsides and its politics.
Most of my daily struggle is not with the cold or the insects that bite me or even the smell I come home in, it is not even the tiredness and isolation when you are working all night in all weathers, most of my struggle is people. In certain circumstances I am a people person, I am sociable and mostly can be fun to be around, but, when it comes to work I find myself always being a little isolated and mainly because of my views on how wildlife should be managed.
Most will tell you I am not your typical deer/wildlife manager, I am not a “if it’s brown it’s down” kind of person, no matter what some people believe, I am not also a “tree hugger” I am kind of stuck in the middle trying, but failing, to please both sides of the fence. My views are pragmatic and somewhat controversial to both sides of the wildlife argument and that does not sit right with some people. My reviews attract a little bit like that too. Although I do more work with some companies than others, I only work with those companies because they allow me to be me, to be honest how I see what honest is and to be trusted to work on the behalf of the consumer and not necessarily the profits of the companies that I do reviews for, basically if it is crap I will say it is crap and I know a couple of retailers do not like that.
When it comes to wildlife of Scotland do I believe it can manage itself? The truth is no. Scotland is in a biodiversity crisis, but not in the way you may think. Scotlands biodiversity crisis is due to the people that is involved in it and their mixed opinions on how this should be done. We all have views on the topic with extremes on both sides. I hope within this article I can address some of this on how I see it, from the stand point as being in the middle, in fact slap bang in the middle, remember this is my point of view and although there are many points of view, my point of view is what I am expressing at the moment, I am not saying my point of view is right but it is right as how I see it at this time and how I would like people to read my side of the argument as someone that is stuck in the middle of the “War of the Wilds”
People Are The Issue
Lets talk about the real reason for the lack of biodiversity in Scotland and that is the people. People are the only reason that Scotlands biodiverse road map is the most confusing than anywhere in the world and the sad fact of it all none of the people involved understand this fully and do not realise that their actions are what have been the cause of the mess we are in.
I am not going to go back 300years either and talk about the animals we have lost and what we need to bring back, why? because that is a topic that clouds the whole issue and that topic raises stupidity, this topic needs planning, infrastructure and people to do the management before it can even properly be talked about and most importantly we need people to agree what the minimum biodiverse road map looks like to reach any goal and that has not been done so we can understand if there is a need to reintegrate these species back into a world that has long forgot them, and that is for the animals sake not ours.
Baselines For Biodiversity
The baseline for biodiversity has not been established, I know it makes no sense, you have all these people screaming about how lacking Scotland is in biodiversity on one side and on the other you have all those people shouting back that we have an amazing biodiverse environment and there is nothing wrong with Scotland, who is right? in fact we don’t know and that is the real answer. We have no idea because the biodiversity baselines shift depending on who is running the argument, even the Scottish government and their many committees, cross party, cannot make an agreement in what they want for Scotland and a change of leadership from time to time makes it worse. What is clear is that the politics at political level makes it harder on the issue as for the political class “Energy” is more important than “Environment” no matter how they pretend to shape it as being a conjoined topic. Energy for most voters is more important than Environment and in the end the Energy Secretary will have more powers of persuasion than that of the Environment Secretary and this is fact, understanding this is half way to understanding the real problem for biodiversity in Scotland.
The Media Does Not Help
What we see in the media is blinkered by individuals thoughts on the subject, we see Grouse Moors being demonised by Environmental activists and on the other side we have Game Keepers , countryside lobby groups and out door organisations in the defence trying to prove with science that they are doing the best job for the land they steward, what we actually do not see is what happens behind closed doors of Holyrood and in the chambers and meeting rooms of the committees that discuss these important topics. For voters sake the politicians fight openly against sporting in Scotland telling the voting population what they want to hear, but, in the back offices of Holyrood they are told to hold back because how much sporting estates provide to the economy and how their estates are now being used to tackle a growing energy crisis. The reality of it all is that all are causing issues for the environment of Scotland.
Failures to Cummunicate
There is failures on both sides of the arguments, this is why governments are focusing on what they think the voting population wants and what they believe they need. Let us be honest here the majority of people who vote do not care about the countryside, don’t get me wrong they will all have an opinion if you place an individual topic in front of them and most likely their own psychological morality will make them think that their answer is the right one, but we know really that if given the choice between something that will effect their lifestyle and something fluffy, privately they will pick the lifestyle choice every time. Having a TV, Washing Machine, Heating, Lighting, Hot Water etc. will always trump any topic to do with the environment as people in nature are generally selfish, and in a way rightly so as they work hard to pay for those amenities.
There is also the point that the majority of the voting population do not live in the countryside or have never lived in the countryside so their understanding of how countryside works or managed is very limited or not at all, we also cannot bypass the fact that many people of whom live in an Urban or Suburban location believe those to be working and living in the country as privileged or the shooting community of being of a different class, which for the most part is not true, those living and working in the country often are on low income wages and rely on the land to survive.
There has not been a day gone by that the countryside politics of biodiversity and ecology is not in the press, the ongoing battles and arguments waging on the front line are persistent, recently it is the wildfires of Yorkshire and Scotland, the ecologists fighting on one side blaming 100’s of years of Muir-Burn for drying out the peatland by Gamekeepers and Land Managers for the fires and on the other hand we have Land Managers and Gamekeepers blaming ecologists and “Green Lairds” for the lack of creating fire breaks by Muir-Burning for the fires, there is one side of this argument that has been forgotten about, our weather system has been going through a change, this change arguably is bringing milder and dryers Winters and Springs which dries the grounds out earlier, those milder Springs turn into initially hotter starts to the summer, then turning wet then turning mild again through to Autumn and as we look at how the weather is performing seasonal we are seeing changes and although nature can adapt to this we cannot and because of this we have longer periods of dryness.
My Experience
I seen this first hand this year for myself on the little estate I do deer management for, forest operations caused a very deep bog to form at the entrance to one of the wooded areas on the estate, the bog was so deep that it was impassable, so impassable that even the Forwarder and Timber Harvester struggled to navigate it, the initial months of wet weather made it even more treacherous that NO ATV could get through it but as soon as the warm weather of Spring hit it dried up quick so quick it solidified and was passable again initially with a few wet spots the dried up completely and even with some bouts of heavy persistent rain this track has, at its core, remained dry retaining very little surface water. This has been the same across the country throughout this summer (summer of 2025) and includes the moorland.
I have seen areas that in years gone by I would not think about taking an ATV into some places on the moor but now can pass easily as below the heather the ground is solid and very dry and we do not perform Muir-Burn and to my knowledge has never been performed on that particular moor. So in the end, in my opinion, this is the real blame for the risk of wildfire. Will active Muir-Burning help to reduce fuel for fire? yes of-course it will but is it lack of burning that is causing the fires? No of-course it is not, the dispute on this is down to the individual management practices of the land managers and their abilities to adapt as nature adapts. Burning will reduce the risk of fire and fire spreading quickly, however not burning does not mean a fire will start, preventing the fire from starting in the first place is the key.
Although Muir-Burn and Wildfires are a hot topic right now ( see what I did there) and the government and ecologists seem to be attacking sporting estates for the cause of these, Rewilding and Carbon Capture Projects and Ecologists are in the firing line too within the press. Again not a day goes by that the press are attacking these groups for reducing rural jobs or removing the ability of “country folk” to work the land traditionally, or taking away sporting etc etc. The main issue with this is the following. Many, but not all, rewilding estates seem to distant themselves heavily away from sporting so much that they refuse to employ the expertise of these experienced land managers, on the ground workers that know the land intimately, and when I say intimately I really mean it. I was asked recently by a friend I took stalking how I remember where to go on all the properties I work my answer was simple, I get to know it.
I treat each property no matter how large or how small as one estate, just different beats within the estate, whether that is a 10thousand acre plot I do deer management or run a syndicate on or the small 1200acres that I work mainly on I treat them as one, that way in my head I can compartmentalise them. If you speak to a gamekeeper, stalker, estate worker or forester that has worked a specific piece of ground for a while they will tell you every part of their ground in detail, names, marches even little glens and corries and if your lucky the history, including when plantations were formed and grazing and growing cycles etc. that knowledge is invaluable, so why are some of these “green lairds” letting that knowledge go? the truth is that some, again not all, want to start from scratch without distraction, for them paperwork is all they need but here is the problem.
Lets take the previous topic of Muir-Burn and wildfires as an example, these Gamekeepers and Land Estate Workers don’t just have local knowledge they have the expertise and knowledge in tackling these blazes even better in some cases that Fire Service and that knowledge is key to active and proactive land management, they are also the original ecologists, ok they are not scientific in their approach but their knowledge of the ground means they know what grows where and when, they know what birds to expect in the Spring and what not to, they know every Fox den and Badger Set, and most of all they know what will happen during certain periods of adverse weather like water shortages during drought periods, where floods during heavy rain periods and what roads are passable or unpassable during periods of heavy snow and even most importantly how to overcome these issues. That knowledge takes time and expertise that is dismissed and this takes me back to Biodiversity.
Why do you think the baselines for Biodiversity goals change all the time or there is no stability when it comes to the topic of biodiversity? the main reason is land needs change daily like the weather, the people change too much even if not physically but psychologically and the arguments of individuals change depending on their needs and agenda. There is no one rule that fits all and sometimes scientists find it hard to understand that, nature is not some uniformed pattern that is consistent, it changes daily.
Every second of every day it changes and although we can map expectations depending on conditions and try predict what might happen if we make certain changes we can always be guaranteed on the outcome. Farmers and Land Managers across the globe have worked this out 100’s of years ago and in doing so they have made the land work for them to create what they need to survive, in fact since humans went from Hunter-Gatherers to Farmers Thousands of years ago we have understood how to make the land work for our needs not always the best for biodiversity granted I will give to that argument, but, they have understood how to work it for their outcome and those that want to increase biodiversity of the land they now Steward have to do the same. So How do they do that?
Again Only My Opinion
To do this, remember this is my opinion I know so many will disagree but it is my opinion and I am open to arguments on it, people have to stop being people for a moment, they have to put their differences aside and work together and use the knowledge that is already out there and work with one another. We all cannot be scientists and we all cannot be land workers but we can all be intelligent enough to take the knowledge and expertise from both worlds and work together. Opinions are like Onions, there are different layers to it and if you peel away at the outer layers that separate easily you will come to core in the middle that is tight and hard to break and that core is where all opinions come together to make a solution, (not bad for 0429 in the morning sitting in a high seat waiting for first light is it? haha).
We then have to understand each and every different piece of land differently, every acre and contour, every waterway and path and ever woodland and grassland. You need make a plan for each bit, set different goals for each area, ask yourself what you would expect and what you need to do to get it if it is not there and work each day accordingly to create your goal. You have to expect that things don’t always just work on their own they need intervention. we have become so focused on fixing the past we are forgetting we are making lasting mistakes NOW that will effect the future. Each and every piece of land needs managed separately in their own way but you need to know what you want from it first.
So Where Do we Focus?
If moorland is not getting ground nesting birds in the Spring, ask why? and work out if you can fix it and what you need to fix it, If deer are not eating a certain grass, ask why? and work out if you can use this in conjunction with your deer management plan. I know these things sound simple enough but when you have different people working to different agendas and goals that change daily it becomes more complicated than a wiring loom problem on a Landrover Discovery 3, because each clip you make to test it your creating potentially a new problem and you cannot just replace the whole loom because that will cause more problems (if you know what I mean I am sorry for your pain haha!).
When it comes to wildlife problems I better get back to my own Sika Deer issue, there is so much emphasis on culling Red deer in Scotland that the real problem is Sika and man is it a problem, with the increase of woodland development we are forgetting about our current natural species and we are creating an environment that truly only benefits non natural species, but, that is a topic for another day.
Final Say
The problem with the Biodiversity of Scotland in the end is and always will be People, until we fix the people we cannot fix the problem, and fixing people is something that will always be a challenge. Sitting here at 0430 in the morning typing this out while sitting in a highseat waiting for first light and stag to come out might be a problem in itself btu it give you time to think about things and the big picture around you. As I said these are my own personal opinions without putting the time in to research much what I have talked about just my thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to read and I hope in the future there will be more clarity on what Scotland actually needs.
