The decline of Scottish red deer

For thousands of years, deer were the foundation of human existence in Scotland. Hunting them provided us with food, clothing, tools and a rich cultural imagination that is hard to envisage in the modern world. Scottish red deer were a universal currency for our ancestors and everybody had a right to use them. It’s the kind of thought that had its roots in ancient understandings of nature and the significance of hunting. 

That much is evident from the old Gaelic expression: ‘Breac à linne, slat à coille is fiadh à fìreach — mèirle às nach do ghabh gàidheal riamh nàire.’ This loosely translates as ‘A fish from the river, a wand from the wood and a deer from the hill — thefts of which no gael is ashamed.’

That sense of open access to venison as a natural resource harks far back into prehistory and it feeds a wider understanding of Scottish red deer as a shared asset; the underpinning basis upon which people lived, died and understood the world. 

Follow this line and it becomes clear that man has always been a natural predator of deer, far beyond the realm of written records and modernity. As we have moved away from these prehistoric start points, strange things have begun to happen. 

 

Democratic roots

The rise of deer as a sporting quarry, and a new kind of hunting, placed enormous value on the animals and took them away from their democratic roots. Stalking reached its peak with the Victorians and that spectre now clouds our understanding of what deer are and used to be. 

Archibald Thorburn’s painting Monarch of the Glen — not to be confused with the Landseer work of the same name — has become an icon of 19th-century land management that now has many critics. 

Deer were reimagined as the preserve of the rich or aristocratic. Those associations continue to hang over them today and, in a recent consultation on deer in the Outer Hebrides, the animals were criticised as being little more than an irritating plaything for ‘toffs’. 

There are often accusations that there are too many deer in Scotland, but these are often badly oversimplified. There certainly are parts of Scotland where deer numbers are very high, but there are also many places where their numbers are unnaturally low. The contrast between upland deer and lowland deer adds an extra layer of complexity, particularly since most deer species will happily exist in a wide range of habitats.

In some parts of the heavily afforested south of Scotland, red deer are being driven to historic lows and there are real concerns that their numbers could stand on the edge of extinction. In other areas, even reasonable numbers of deer are regarded as madly excessive and there are calls for outright extermination of a species that has been present in this country since the last ice age. It’s a bizarrely heated scenario in which facts come second. 

 

Blame

Remembering those toff associations, it’s clear that people who dislike deer are often motivated by a kind of class war. They look to the landscape and find that nature is depleted and deer are implicated in that damage. It’s only logical that deer are to ‘blame’ and it helps that by hurting deer, you’re also hurting the toffs who love deer. It happens all the time, but it flies in the face of the old sense that deer belonged to everybody. 

Deer have not changed much in all the time we’ve known them; we’re simply thinking about them differently. Even where rewilding projects exterminate deer, with the promise that they will be allowed back once the vegetation has recovered, this doesn’t accommodate the fact that deer are often hefted animals. They belong in certain places and their social structures are closely based on specific landscapes. The idea that you can kill them all then let others take their place when you decide it’s appropriate seems to represent a sad misunderstanding of a very complex animal. 

In modern Scotland, deer are now routinely regarded as a problem for the threat they pose to conservation targets. The most famous and ‘progressive’ rewilding projects have exterminated almost all of their deer and there is a growing trend for people to complain about deer numbers on social media. Through a series of unfortunate events, deer are now regarded by many people as pest species — they’re a frustrating problem that simply won’t go away. 

It’s hard to imagine how traditional sporting management of deer can coexist alongside an ideology that believes that less is best. After all, the classic model of deerstalking relies upon high numbers of deer shot during the season and even this can struggle to break even. Even estates that are successful in this model often make most of their money from associated revenue streams such as accommodation or hospitality. The margins are already fine, so it’s no wonder that as momentum grows to reduce Scottish red deer numbers, many are beginning to feel anxious.

There’s a certain irony that, when estates raise these concerns to conservationists, they’re sometimes advised to charge stalkers more to make up the shortfall. It seems unfair to blame the sport for being elitist, then force it to put prices up.

There is also a perception that deerstalking in Scotland conforms to an international conversation around canned trophy hunting. A few incidents linked to deer have hit the headlines, but the level of understanding in the media around stalking is often poor. It’s easy to lose track of the real issue at hand, particularly when certain commentators are always looking for an opportunity to score points against the ‘bad guys’. 

Stalking does result in trophies, but those trophies are a sign of good deer management. A Scottish red deer population that is being hammered into nonexistence will not produce many royal or imperial heads. Instead, contract stalkers will take a moderate number of six-pointer stags each year — a sure sign of a population that’s in distress.

Whatever happens next, it’s clear that the most sustainable future for Scottish red deer requires a permanent commitment to management, whatever form that takes. There is space for traditional models, but there is also room to think about broadening access to stalking for communities where deer are an important natural resource. 

Several schemes in Scotland have already shown how community-based deerstalking can allow local people to engage with the landscape in a sustainable, healthy and proactive way. It also allows young people to learn more about deer management as a career option. As pressure grows on game shooting and grouse moor management, deer certainly seem to be one of the most reliable sources of work for the people seeking employment in the sporting world. As long as deer management is conducted by a strangely opaque and inaccessible cadre of professional contract stalkers, it’s unlikely to recruit enough young people to remain sustainable. 

 

The tangible value of Scottish red deer

However we choose to manage deer for the future, it’s clear that we need to stop hating these animals for crimes that are clearly the result of human mismanagement. It’s crucial that we turn the ‘problem’ of deer on its head and start to look at these animals as an asset with real, tangible value. Rewilders often claim that deer have no natural predators in the UK, but that seems to overlook the role humans have played in the landscape. 

For many people, natural simply means ‘nothing to do with human beings’. The future of red deer in Scotland depends upon our ability to reconnect ourselves as being part of the wild, whether that’s by stalking, eating or being part of a culture based on hunting. It’s in everybody’s best interests, including the deer.