What's so glorious about the 12th - the start of the
THE hills were alive with the sound of gun shots yesterday, as the Glorious Twelfth marked the start of the 2009 grouse shooting season. With the highest hills and what are commonly considered to be the most spectacular birds, Scotland is arguably Britain's front runner in the field, attracting guns from the locality as well as the rest of Britain, Europe and America.
And it looks as though the industry is in for a glorious season to build on the opening day, with gamekeepers reporting nearly a million red grouse on Scotland's heather-clad hills and moors.
The pre-season counts carried out by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), an independent wildlife conservation charity, show numbers are up approximately 25 per cent on recent years in most areas.
Dr Adam Smith, the trust's Scottish Policy officer, says the red grouse has done well in its core range. "This year's productivity is good in many areas and the improved young to old ratio is a sure sign of a healthy population," insists Smith. "It is great that many of those who continue to invest heavily in moorland management are going to be rewarded this season, with some of our counts predicting the prospect of the biggest shootable surplus since 2003."
And it's not just the land owners and guns who will benefit from a bumper year, as Scotland's famous grouse could feather the nest of the small rural communities, not least in the Borders, where grouse shooting provides an important boost to the local economy.
Edward Johnson, assistant factor at the Border's Roxburghe Estate, explains. "We take on a lot of people from the locality - pick-ups, beaters, people to provide the food. The better year we have, the more people we need to use - it's a big boost for the local economy.
"If we have 80 people shooting on a day, we have in the region of 30 or 40 people working, which is quite a lot of people in a day."
Roxburghe's grouse moors, Rawburn and Byrecleugh, are thought of as two of the finest in Scotland, being highly consistent and prolific. "Generally we have a lot of repeat clients because it's a very good moor," says Johnson, "We have a mix of guns - Austrians, Germans, but mainly Brits. We had a very good season last year and we are hoping for the same again. The grouse shooting on a good year is a very important part of the local economy, it attracts people into the area and they stay in the area."
The Border shoots will seemingly be unaffected by the doom and gloom of the current economic climate. "It's looking reasonable this year," Johnson confirms. "It was perhaps a bit slower letting the days initially but we have let them."
Both the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust highlight the economic benefits of shooting for rural Scotland.
BASC say that nearly half of Britain's 400,000 plus shooters do some shooting in Scotland, providing 240 million to the Scottish economy and significant benefits to the local economies. Since the bulk of this money is spent in rural areas and often at times when other forms of tourism are at a low level it is particularly important.
Ian McCall, the GWCT Director for Scotland, says that of the 240 million, 30 million comes from grouse alone, a figure which has a direct impact in rural areas. "This industry provides work in small communities, areas where it is not easy to generate employment," McCall explains.
The Border moors have been largely unaffected recently by issues that can impact on the grouse population, such as heather beetle and ticks, and despite the cold and wet July, prospects in the area are good with average productivity on one moor of seven chicks per brood, an exceptional number by any standards for Scotland.
In many upland areas, grouse shooting is now the only significant income earner which is not heavily subsidised by the taxpayer. But it doesn't just serve to maintain employment in remote rural areas, it also provides the "economic engine" to pay for conservation management.
Unique to the uplands of Britain, red grouse are closely associated with heather moorland and owners and their staff work hard around the calendar to conserve and improve the heather. Ian McCall says: "This unique habitat, of which Scotland boasts 75 per cent of the global total, is home to a wide range of species which often only now occur in large numbers on grouse moors."
Scotland's public rightly value and enjoy their heather clad hills for their scenic and recreational splendours, as do visitors from the UK and overseas. "Few are aware of the fact that these are managed habitats created and cared for by Scotland's shepherds, keepers and sporting managers," McCall adds. "Hopefully a good season in 2009 with appropriate harvesting levels may mean a purple passage for grouse and the hills in the next few years".
Alex Hogg, chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers' Association, is particularly keen to preserve the heather moorland, considering it part of Scotland's heritage. He says: "I think it is really important from a keeper's point of view. We feel we're preserving part of the Scottish culture and heritage, we feel quite strongly about that."
Hogg believes that getting children from the Borders involved in game shooting is a good way to ensure the longevity of the sport. "Grouse shooting helps conservation and protects the heritage of the Scotland's heather moorland," says Hogg. "Involving young people as beaters or in other tasks means they can make some money, whilst learning discipline and team spirit. Working on the hillside promotes good exercise in the fresh air. We're fighting to keep it alive."
Robbie Douglas Miller owns the Horseupcleugh estate in the Lammermuir Hills, near Duns, which neighbours Roxburghe's Rawburn moor. The former managing director of Jenners department store in Edinburgh, Miller bought the estate in 2005.
"When I bought Horseupcleugh it was run as a commercial farm, mostly sheep and some cattle," says Miller. "There was no sporting interest at all and the result of that regime was that the heather habitat on the hill was very poor. It had been heavily over-grazed and there was no bracken control. The heather was largely old and rank."
Improving the moor was an early priority. "To turn a large part of the farm into a working grouse moor we needed to improve the quality of the heather and restore the habitat," explains Miller. "We reduced the sheep from about 1400 to 570 and we have taken the cattle off completely. We planted rowan and silver birch in little clumps rather than large areas."
Miller also started the process of heather burning, where strips of the heather is burnt each year in a rotation. "This has created the mosaic habitat which is so important for grouse because they feed on young heather, nest in old heather and dry off on the bare strips," adds Miller.
And it is an approach that appears to have worked, as the heather quality has improved, and with it the number of grouse. "The grouse population has increased quite significantly," Miller says, which he attributes to the improved habitat as well as tight predator control by Ian Elliot, Horseupcleugh's grouse keeper, and the all important benefit of having good neighbours: "We are fortunate to have a well managed moor on both sides. Being surrounded by working grouse moor makes a huge difference, especially as we are small by grouse moor standards - the neighbours help control the predators and manage the habitat."
Grouse shooting has been a lifelong passion for Miller, and when the chance came to buy the 3,000-acre estate of Horseupcleugh four years ago he did not hesitate, believing this was a rare opportunity to develop a commercially viable grouse moor. "I was born and brought up on a grouse moor so I have a natural empathy if you like."
Indeed research has shown that moors managed for grouse shooting typically have five times as many golden plovers and lapwings as unmanaged moors, and about twice as many curlews. Paradoxically, it is due to shooting that the red grouse itself, and many of the birds that share its habitat, are not on the endangered species list. Where actively keepered, grouse numbers can be locally high giving enough for a shootable surplus in certain years without reducing the breeding population.
It has cost Miller around 200,000 so far to turn this Berwickshire moorland into a viable grouse shooting area. And even on a wet, grey day it is impossible not to appreciate how spectacular Horseupcleugh is. The hills top 17,000 feet in parts and the rambling, rolling heather-clad moorland is an excellent example of how beautiful Berwickshire can be.
Richard Wakeford, Director General for the Environment, recently visited the Horseupcleugh moor. "He came out here for a morning," explains Miller. "He admitted to being gobsmacked by what grouse shooting has created here, what it delivers for the Scottish people and visitors."
In a recent survey which asked a thousand Scottish residents what they'd like to see across their landscapes, heather-clad moorland came out number one. Miller has certainly delivered this, and with grouse numbers increasing year on year, the shoot attracting more visitors to the area and employment in the vicinity on the up, Horseupcleugh can be described as a gem in Berwickshire's crown.
"It's a win win situation all round - and it is nice to have a win win situation in this day and age," commented Miller.
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Weather for Duns
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 5 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
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Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
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