Scotland's gamekeepers are warning MSPs not to strangle the countryside with further red tape, by seeking control of the voluntary deer management system they say is working well.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) says many people would deem it a centralised attack on their way of life.
The SGA was responding to the news that the convener of Holyrood's Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee, Rob Gibson is proposing the more than 60 Deer Management Groups (DMGs) of estates and land managers come under control of the Scottish Parliament.
The DMGs collaborate on a voluntary basis to plan deer management in the different areas, although Scottish Natural Heritage has the ultimate legal responsibility.
Mr Gibson believes the DMGs' focus on shooting deer for sport has led to increasing deer numbers causing severe ecological damage, particularly attempts to restore native species of trees.
The SNP MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, has prepared a paper for his committee, which also proposes a legally enforceable code of practice. The committee will decide next week whether to pursue the issue.
In his paper he cites the example of the wild land charity the John Muir Trust proposing a red deer cull for its 9000-acre Quinag estate in north-west Sutherland last year. This was because the balance in the local habitat was found to be badly skewed towards deer numbers and against the regeneration of native woods.
However, it was opposed by the local DMG. Mr Gibson argues this happens across Scotland.
But SGA chairman Alex Hogg said yesterday: "While this may have been a laudable imperative on John Muir Trust ground, their refusal to entertain fencing, to properly consult with their neighbours and to discuss alternatives, meant their laudable imperative then became a major problem for everyone else and was clearly going to have a negative socio-economic affect, putting jobs at risk.
"This one area, however, is not wholly representative of the situation across Scotland where the voluntary deer management system is operating well and, in recent years, has been working better thanks to greater co-operative working with SNH."
He said sporting activities, including deer stalking, brought major economic value to Scotland, as well as preserving employment and opportunities in areas where there would otherwise be greater migration without a healthy industry.
He said one of the problems in introducing a statutory system, for example, was that it would be very difficult for the public purse to be able to match private investment.
Putting the DMGs under statutory control would mean "taking decisions away from the people who have the requisite knowledge to make them and placing them in the hands of those they deem to have less. It is hard to justify", he said.
"What you could end up with is the worst of both worlds. An unpopular, inflexible system operating at high cost to the public purse which doesn't solve the problem it was set up to address."
But head of policy for Scottish Wildlife, Dr Maggie Keegan, said: "We support Rob Gibson's stance. In some areas of Scotland, deer numbers are managed at levels which are not in balance with the natural environment and the damage caused through overgrazing and trampling pressure is causing severe damage to some of Scotland's internationally important protected sites and landscapes."
She added: "There is also a cost to the taxpayer because erecting deer fencing to keep deer out of protected sites and woodlands is expensive. In the past 10 years alone over £20 million has been spent from the public purse on deer fencing across Scotland."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article