wild animals and fences

Thu, Sep 13, 2007

I read Cameron McNeish’s editorial in TGO a while ago about the Alladale Wilderness Reserve that’s being proposed by a millionaire landowner in the northern highlands. Then I read Andy Howell’s thoughts on the matter.

He says, “…But wouldn’t it be great to see beavers at work in the Highlands? Wouldn’t a TGO Challenge be made all the better for hearing a wolf crying out in the dead of night?…”. Quite frankly no! but not for the reasons Andy states, which are more or less nimbyism by hillwalkers. Hillwalkers have two backyards. Their urban one where they live and their wider one, where they walk and climb. Any change to either brings out nimbyism in all of us.

My objections to it concern the anthropocentric view of wilderness that more or less everyone has. There’s a cute little beaver, pleasing my senses by being beaverish and chomping down trees to make a wee dam. Awwww. What will the beaver do when he runs out of trees? There are very very few in the highlands.

There’s a wolf on the skyline, how majestic and noble, howling at the moon. I am connected and resonating with the mountain environment. In fact the wolf is howling through hunger as the deer have been coralled by other landowners keen to protect their shooting season profits.

Yes, what we have in the highlands is a 100% manufactured ecosystem. I won’t say landscape as you’d need a pretty big hammer to shape those mountains! If you want to be truly horrified, go read A Hundred Years in the Highlands by Osgood Mackenzie. This is a truly terrible account of mass extermination of native species by a rabid Victorian landowning disease. And yet thousands of people walk round Inverewe Gardens, left to us by Osgood Mackenzie, the self same exterminator of highland wildlife, without realising the small oasis in the desert that it is. A few plants and some wind blown trees are not compensation for the “wilderness” that man left us with.

Osgood Mackenzie is such a horrendous example of Victorian excess and ignorance that I bestow an Osbad Award on whomever I see today doing the same thing.

For good or bad, the ecosystem that halfwits such as Osbad left us is here. Just like modern houses with central heating replaced white houses, which replaced black houses. Should we all go back to living in black houses? Should we go to America, Canada, New Zealand, round up ancestors of victims of the Highland Clearances and clear them back to the highlands? Of course not. So why do it with animals? Animals which are happy in their native habitat in other countries. Why remove them and dump them in a habitat that has been unable to support them for centuries. Remove them there just because “they were there”.

Should we work to make the earth a molten ball of lava circling a proto star in the early solar system? That’s what it was. Of course not but I thought I’d better say something funny at this point!

Today’s ecosystem cannot support what is being proposed. There aren’t enough trees in the highlands to support a beaver population. Deer and other “managed assets” such as grouse and pheasants won’t be allowed to come near hungry wolves without massive compensation to already very well off landowners.

And what happens if Lister decides it’s not worth the effort? What would stop him just getting rid of the lot? Think it won’t happen? That’s what SNH did on Rum. Basically, the SNH research into deer had finished, so they got rid of them to plant trees instead. If SNH can get away with that, why not people like Lister?

If we’re going to reintroduce species that were exterminated centuries ago, how do we stop them being exterminated again? How do we ensure they have a suitable habitat to thrive without becoming the dominant species and overrunning the place and ending up as the new deer? Perhaps a Lister enclosure may just be the answer? A trial on a small scale leading to a National Nature Reserve? Which raises the question why don’t NNRs have wolves and beavers? There must be a good reason.

What about the legal implications. The access laws in Scotland prevent a landowner deliberately placing the public in danger by, for example, letting a bull wander on a public right of way. i.e. an area where it is reasonable to expect the public to be. Presumably that’s why the fence is going up round Lister’s enclosure.

So if Lister is serious, why don’t SNH and the Scottish Government come up with public money to make sure it’s a success and bring in a degree of regulation and openness that is lacking at the moment.

And stop being anthropocentric about the “wilderness” out there. Animals have requirements too. They’re not your esoteric “connected resonating"ones that readers of outdoor magazines are breaking out with. They’re more basic. Like something to eat and somewhere to live. If the habitat won’t support the garnishing of the outdoor experience, don’t do it.