“I own all the barn owls here”
I was on the moor on Tuesday 11th – the eve of the start of the grouse shooting season, although that fact had passed me by. I drove up in the evening after a day tapping away at a keyboard, hoping to photograph barn owls.
Driving slowly, a car came up behind me; I pulled over to let it past, but the driver didn’t seem to want to overtake. As he came alongside, I saw it was a man in a tweed cap, and he initiated a conversation.
At first, it was a normal chat of the type I’m more than happy have. ‘Have you seen anything interesting?’ he asked. ‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘I was hoping to see some barn owls – do you know where they might be?’
‘Do I know where they might be? I own all the barn owls here.’
Grouse moor owner
I was taken aback. As the man kept talking, it became clear it wasn’t an ordinary, pleasant conversation – it was 50% propaganda, 50% surveillance/information gathering.
He drove down the hill, then turned his car round, which meant he had another opportunity to pursue his agenda as I drove slowly past. He started going on about how many grouse there were. ‘I don’t mind grouse, they can look ok in a photo,’ I said, ‘but I don’t really care how many there are.’
Then I got the rehearsed lines.
You’d better care about the grouse – they’re the reason the birds of prey are here. I wouldn’t spend half a million a year on these moors otherwise, and it’d all be gorse and bracken.
Grouse moor owner
I can have a conversation with someone I don’t agree with, but I’m not prepared to be approached by a stranger and subjected to propaganda.
There’s also no chance that I’ll forget all the facts about how much wildlife is killed on the moors so the owner can make money from shooting, nor overlook the damaging impacts of burning and draining the land.
The fact is our moorlands need some management and conservation to ensure they are thriving habitats for wildlife and valuable carbon sinks. The management they get at the moment isn’t that; it’s profit-focused grouse-farming, and any wildlife benefits are patchy, incidental, and mixed with a lot of slaughter.
I told him he didn’t own the barn owls, they’re wild creatures, and that attitude leads to birds of prey being killed on grouse moors.
‘Not on this moor,’ he said. ‘It’s a small problem, and it’s reducing.’
‘No it isn’t, it’s systematic,’ I said – and I could see in his eyes he knows it’s true.
Labour has called for grouse shooting to be licensed after a big increase in illegal killings of birds of prey during the coronavirus lockdown.
In better news, golden eagles have successfully reared a chick at Trees for Life Dundreggan, a rewilded former deer-stalking estate.