The joy of deer stalking

In spite of my dodgy right hand – caused by an injury to my radial nerve – I decided to go stalking in the Highlands last weekend. Recovery from such injuries is quite slow, but enough mobility had returned to my trigger finger for me to give it a whirl. Invitations to hunt stags in the Cairngorms National Park are nothing to be sniffed at, particularly as the Scottish government seems determined to phase out stalking, along with fishing, grouse shooting and all the other country sports associated with rich Scottish landowners.

The war being waged by the SNP and the Greens against the owners of private estates is motivated by class envy but it’s dressed up as a high-minded attempt to save the planet. According to these chippy little martinets, the most useful contribution Scotland can make towards reducing CO₂ emissions is to replace the peat moorland of the Highlands with pine trees – and in an effort to give this wanton act of destruction a veneer of romanticism, they talk about restoring the Great Wood of Caledon. The existence of this impenetrable Highland forest was cited by Roman generals as the reason they couldn’t progress beyond southern Scotland in their conquest of Britain, but some historians think it was invented by these commanders to spare their blushes.

The latest salvo in this campaign is a recent change to the Deer (Close Season) (Scotland) Order making it possible to shoot stags all year round rather than just between 1 July and 20 October. That sounds like an uncharacteristically libertarian measure, but the Scottish government is also intending to pay contractors millions of pounds to cull the deer population. This will supposedly make the reforestation of the Highlands easier and lead to the return of species that haven’t been seen in these parts for hundreds of years, such as wolf, lynx and bear.