The Sheep gets its revenge

[Big J]

The whole hunting/land management quandary is the reason I stopped being vegan about 7 years ago. Working in forestry I couldn't resolve the fact that good forestry management required the control of deer and (grey) squirrel and being vegan. I regarded the importance of maintaining woodland in the UK as being more significant than the individual rights of game. 

 

So I started eating game and wild caught fish. That was many years ago and now I'm just a hypocrite and eat near enough anything. 

 

Anyway, I support the control of wild deer (and possibly sheep - not something I know anything about) but trophy hunting is always tasteless (IMO). Shoot an animal because the local environment requires it, or it's required for food, but don't celebrate taking a life. That's the stuff of serial killers! 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Big J

[drinksloe]

Fair play to u J for making an informd decision.

Must admit got a lot of time for vegans as atleast they care wot there eating, most hunters are the same.

Its the other hypocrites that annoy me shout about things like this but them live on packaged horse meat from supermarket, simply don't care wot it is, where it came from, or how it lived/was killed as long as cheap. Or the vege's running about wearing leather, might as well go whole hogg and just wear fur!

 

I get the trophy hunting thing is a hard concept to grasp even many stalkers are pretty anti trophy hunting, until 1 makes in front of their own rifle, they'll soon shoot it then thou.

I used to be pretty anti it till i read up on it a bit more.

If it wasn't for those trophies expense most estates couldn't afford the stalker, and surroubding businesses would lose incomes too.

 

Really how many folk are going to go on holiday in very rural scotland throu the week throu Oct esp if weather bad and kids still at school, yet hotels and B&B's will be booked full for 6 weeks with boys coming up for the stags hoping to catch the rut.

There is something brilliant about going out with the rut in ful swing esp 1st thing in morning esp if some sika about too, got the reds roaring and sika whistling, even as a non stalker the noise is unbelievable.

 

Also because of the high price for trophies it lets stalkers take more normal 'clients' out on the hinds/does which is all subsidised by the stags.

Some places u can go out on the hinds for as little as £150 a day, thats paying ur stlkrs wage, posibly estate rifle/ammo, landy, argo/pony/tracked vehicle, posibly a 2nd person to drive the extraction vehicle, larder and chiller up to modern standards.

Not making any money at those rates but it gives working lads a great chance

 

 

On a well run higland estate those antlers on the stags head really aren't that different to u felling a prime (ideally just over prime)mature tree, or a farmer/stockperson showing a prime animal.

They only exist throu good management practices.

Just as u will have planted, sprayed round it, beat it up, possibly a few selective thiinings to give that tree the light nutrients it needs

The stalker will have done the exact same with the deer, watched a load of young stags, shot the worst (either ill or genetics) left some and then every year shot a few more of that crop only leaving the best/biggest beasts.

There is actually formula that tell u how many stags (and hinds) u need to recruit (born) every year to shoot a certain number mature adult stags, considering it will really be 10-12 years to make a trophy sized head. Really a balancing act as the stalker will want the best deer to sire as many offspring as it can to carry on the good genes, BUT after the rut in oct/nov the best stags will have faught and shagged themselves to skin and bone an early harsh snow/weather could easy see ur big money pay day die on the hill of starvation (great way to go out thou too much fighting and shaggin ? )

 

Really in my opinion shooting trophy class deer year on year is the best u can do in deer/habitat management, just the same as a farmer producing top cows/bulls/sheep or crops or a forester constantly producing trees above average year on year, it doesn't happen by accident.

 

If u want to look at some truely terrible deer management have a google about National Trust for Scotland and the disaster they have made at Mar lodge 1 of the most famous red deer forests in scotland

Or wot the John Muir Trust done up Assynt summer of 2015 (i think) and shot 86 stags and left them all lying on the hill to rot away, no effort to extract the vension (talking 8T of vension left)

All the neighbouring estates which rely on stags for money had to cancel their entire cull for season, even now years later still a shortage of mature stags.

 

If a hooray henry/toff land owner had done any of the above it would of been all over the papers but because its done by charities nothing is said

 

[Mull]

With all due respect what’s carbon foot print got to do with the lad talking about toxic fish farming?
i get people need jobs but not at the extent of killing off native fish stocks and feeding people potentially health damaging food.
this is a forum for tree cutters, let’s face it none of us can say we are carbon neutral, unless you live off grid, cut trees with an axe and long saw and never touch man made items/burn anything!

Toxic is toxic bikeguy! Whether that be a vehicle or a fish farm, employment and economics are fairly important, maybe even as important as us all having a vehicle? Infact.....

[muldonach]

On 02/01/2019 at 22:54, Mull said:

Toxic is toxic bikeguy! Whether that be a vehicle or a fish farm, employment and economics are fairly important, maybe even as important as us all having a vehicle? Infact.....

Give it up old son - fish farming is totally unsustainable in environmental terms - it needs to go to full containment - end of story.

 

Land farming has (quite rightly) been more and more held to account over both direct and diffuse pollution over the last 20-30 years the same principle needs to apply to fish farming.

[Mull]

Give it up old son - fish farming is totally unsustainable in environmental terms - it needs to go to full containment - end of story.
 
Land farming has (quite rightly) been more and more held to account over both direct and diffuse pollution over the last 20-30 years the same principle needs to apply to fish farming.

Yup, the same principle should apply to every “dirty” industry, no doubt about that.
Fish farming will continue as it is, it’s too valuable not to, yes they will try and clean it up, even the the measures for treatments etc creates hundreds of jobs.

My objection was to the suggestion it shouldn’t be happening because a few toffs weren’t coming on holiday.
I don’t have figures, but living and working here I can see the massive difference the industry has made to people and the economy of this area in the last 30 yrs.

[westphalian]

Living in rural Scotland I have a pretty cynical view of the big estates. They aren't all bad of course, and they do do so some valuable work. But they all seem to invest so heavily in pheasant shoots, and that just gets on my tits. I've done some work for game keepers when I was contracting. Smashing big bits out of mature oaks so the birds will fly right out over where the wankers park their range rovers. And then the sheer number of pheasants they inflict on the Scottish countryside. Just nah... They might offer something to the rural economy but it's nowhere near enough to justify the extensive damage they do to the ecology.
Vent over.
But that's not hunting I suppose.
If there's fire arms offences then I hope they get the book thrown at them. Posing with the animal you just shoot is ludicrous and they should get a slap for that regardless and recover their life choices. But otherwise, hunting is an important part of the Scottish countryside and will continue to be.

I opportunistically shoot pheasant (and the rest) but can’t abide the shoot brigade. My next door neighbour farmer told me last week a shoot close to his Dad’s just buried 450 pheasants the wankers had just shot. All you need to know really

[muldonach]

19 hours ago, Mull said:

 

Yup, the same principle should apply to every “dirty” industry, no doubt about that.
Fish farming will continue as it is, it’s too valuable not to, yes they will try and clean it up, even the the measures for treatments etc creates hundreds of jobs.

My objection was to the suggestion it shouldn’t be happening because a few toffs weren’t coming on holiday.
I don’t have figures, but living and working here I can see the massive difference the industry has made to people and the economy of this area in the last 30 yrs.

The suggestion is not that it shouldn't be happening because a few toffs are not coming on holiday.

 

It should not be happening the way it has been allowed to happen because it has completely decimated the wild salmon and sea trout fishery of the entire west coast of Scotland. Open cage fish farming as presently practiced is vandalism on a grand scale.

 

It provides employment to approx 8000 people of whom 1450 are in primary production ( the farmers), and the remainder in processing and marketing. What effect it has had on angling tourism is not quantified.

 

 

[difflock]

Typical tragedy of the commons stuff, no different to sea fishing.

[openspaceman]

47 minutes ago, difflock said:

Typical tragedy of the commons stuff, no different to sea fishing.

You've got it, no different from a lot of enterprises that don't account for the external costs of their effluent or over-cropping.

[Mull]

The suggestion is not that it shouldn't be happening because a few toffs are not coming on holiday.

*that was the suggestion I replied to originally*
 
It should not be happening the way it has been allowed to happen because it has completely decimated the wild salmon and sea trout fishery of the entire west coast of Scotland. Open cage fish farming as presently practiced is vandalism on a grand scale.
 
It provides employment to approx 8000 people of whom 1450 are in primary production ( the farmers), and the remainder in processing and marketing. What effect it has had on angling tourism is not quantified.
 
 

The figures speak for themselves, although they don’t spell out the importance to the communities concerned which have been kept alive and relevant by young folk being able to continue living and working there, keeping schools, shops, post offices open, and many other occupations not directly linked to the industry.

I’m not trying to pick a fight muldonach, I’m just saying what I see and believe.
Yes, overfishing of salmon ( which I was employed in as a schoolboy, bagnets) and certainly fish farming have had devastating effects.

But, we all need to work and contribute in the area in which we live.

Move forward and improve our ways.