to wolf or not to wolf

Sun, Nov 11, 2007

Chris Townsend posted on this debacle again recently, on the attempt by Paul Lister to “close” vast tracts of land around Seana Bhraigh. It’s starting to hot up now as Alladale bothy is now closed. Nothing illegal in that. Immoral perhaps, as it deprives us of a little piece of stravaiging history. The history of wild land access is written in the bothy books of the nation. One less bothy is one less chapter in that history.

Bothies are the nearest we get to the continential hut system, which no landowner would dare take on and attempt to close. Can you imagine Paul Lister trying to flood the hills around Zermatt wth wolves and turning up at the door of the Hornli hut? “I’m awfully sorry but you’ll have to vacate this place by next week. You see I have a crate of wolves arriving and I don’t want you frightening the things. Do you see?”. But because Scotland has no rights, that’s effectively what he said to the MBA. And there was nothing they could do about it.

The fence however, is a different matter entirely. That would be illegal. It would contravene the land access legislation. But going by a past ruling that wouldn’t matter. If you have a cranky enough reason and enough money to take on the Scottish Parliament, you can fence off what you like. But leaving aside the illegality or otherwise of it all, if you look beyond the trees you can spot glimpses of the wood.

From what I can ascertain there are three camps in this argument. There is Lister, who wants to fence it all off and play Noah, producing exotic creatures from his well funded Ark. There are those who are partly in favour of the matter. I’ll call them the “recreationists” and there are those who take a more “spiritualistic” view of the matter. I say spiritualistic for want of a better word. The resonating crowd as espounded by Cameron McNeish. I’ll put my cards on the table. I’m of the spiritualistic brigade. I don’t want wolves reintroduced. I’m not saying that’s Cameron’s position. I have no idea what that is. I’m just saying that Cameron has become quite an advocate of wild land spiritualism and that’s why I keep reading TGO. And perhaps I’m being unfair to Chris. Those are most probably his own opinions but being president of the MCofS I can’t help but wonder.

So, the three camps. Lister wants to fence off the Alladale estate and turn it into a wilderness park. The recreationists don’t particularly want to do anything but if, say, the MCofS was given enough dosh and a remit to do such a thing, I suspect they’d do the same but without the fence. Time and again I read tosh such as “…the call of a wolf on the moonlit skyline…”. Please! I call them the recreationists as they seem to want to recreate experiences they have ex-Scotia. They have a strange view of wilderness, where they are perfectly happy to introduce an alien species such as the wolf and allow it to prey on the local wildlife, which has adapted to the man made and man-sustained habitat in which they live. But try to recreate in the highlands the superb hut system of the Alps or Pyrenees and they cry “despoilation of the wilderness!” and before you can finish the sentence they’re piling up the brushwood to burn the heretics. All this while their wolves are terrorising native wildlife and chasing down herds of terrfied sheep and deer. For face it, if you were a wolf, you wouldn’t go for the fastest meal on legs. You’d want an easy chomp. You’d go for the goats on Seana Bhraigh, then maybe the hares, then, when you’ve wiped them out you’d move lower down and go for the sheep. But the recreationists wouldn’t be able to see past the pyres of smouldering heretics.

And so to my position. Maybe I’m the only one in this camp. Maybe I’m the long-bearded weirdo with the shotgun in the log cabin. I’m a member of MCofS and I have great respect for the likes of Chris Townsend and Cameron McNeish but I also have a great respect for John Muir and his ilk. I don’t put stones on cairns as something is living under the stone and the moss on the stone on the cairn has taken 300 years to reach that size. The last thing it wants is some lump of rock curtailing its expansion, its life. Little things like that build into a different view of “wilderness”, where everything is equal, more or less. In full goretex, axe and crampons, I’ve staggered past ptarmigan huddled in a crevice in 90mph winds and blizzards. There’s no equality there. The ptarmigan has the edge and I’m just passing through. I couldn’t do what it does and it couldn’t do what I do. We each do what we do and as I pass by, bent to the storm, I leave it to shelter. I don’t grab the camera and creep nearer for that picture as I know it will just up and go and lose its shelter. In a few hours I’ll be propping up the bar showing off the blurry picture of a ptarmigan while at the same time it roams the storm bound summit looking for shelter. For that pointless snap I’ve probably put it in mortal peril. So I pass by, strangers in the storm, knowing it’s fine where it is and the story I can tell over a pint will paint a thousand pictures.

So you see. I don’t want wolves brought back. There’s no place for them here any more. Their habitat has long since been destroyed. Their prey has adapted to a different lifestyle. We all do what we do and to unbalance that would be catastrophe. I object to having wolves taken from their proper habitat and dumped in what is a wasteland to them and if doesn’t work out, well they can be got rid of as easily as they were brought in. That is a disgusting attitude.

The interview with Lister’s environmental consultant sums it all up and I quote him:

“is the demand for access and to ramble everywhere going to prevent some of these important nature conservation games?” 

and there you have it summed up in one line, from the mouth of the “game’s” consultant, who, apparently, lives in Abernethy forest. Up a tree I presume.

So come on Lister. Stop being a soulless businessman and use that dosh to just let, well, wild land do what it does. Reopen Alladale bothy and let us keep writing in that chapter of stravaiging history.