Nothing 'glorious' about tomorrow for beleaguered keepers in Strathspey, Badenoch and beyond
With the 2023 grouse season set to get under way tomorrow, gamekeepers are warning their profession stands at a critical juncture with job losses building.
Visitors from across the world take to the country’s moors every year for the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ with the season netting up to £35m annually for the rural economy – many of them in Badenoch and Strathspey.
A Scottish Government commissioned report found that grouse moor management supports higher per hectare employment than other moorland land uses such as forestry and conservation.
Additionally, gamekeepers’ work in habitat and wildlife management helps to sustain declining upland bird species while protecting globally rare moorland habitats from further fragmentation.
However, rapid land use change due to incentivised carbon schemes and the political uncertainty caused by the Wildlife Management and Muirburn Bill (currently at Stage One) is overshadowing this year’s season.
A member survey by the Scottish Gamekeepers Association is confirming job fears, with responses to date indicating positions being lost on estates and not replaced.
Now young gamekeepers with families are pleading with MSPs to understand the gravity of the situation facing their profession, with the twin climate and nature emergencies necessitating the retention of skilled land workers.
“I am not sure the Scottish Parliament realises just how close we are to losing a rural sector. I don’t think we’ve ever had so much political change,” said Highland gamekeeper, Ed Jaundrell.
“We are at the stage where jobs are not being replaced. The young people the countryside needs are now thinking twice. They can’t see an end. It’s relentless.”
The prospects for this year’s grouse season are unlikely to boost long term morale, although limited shoot programmes will go ahead in the heartlands of the highlands, Angus and the Borders.
Grouse breeding has been patchy, with some shoots reducing the number of let days, hoping for more birds by later into the season, which closes on December 10.
Whilst grouse numbers - as a wild bird - fluctuate, recent years of shoot losses have not helped the sector rebound, amidst a build-up of external pressures.
High profile estates such as Strathspey's Kinrara have been sold to drinks giant Brewdog and FLS respectively for centrally incentivised tree planting schemes, with gamekeepers losing their jobs and houses.
Corporates buying up Scottish land for carbon credit schemes, to mitigate against emissions created by their activities, has led to unprecedented speculation in land, with gamekeeper jobs impacted.
“Those who advise estate owners will be seeing the money now for trees and the like. They are not daft. If an owner sells, though, it is generally the gamekeepers who pay the price, with jobs and houses, and I am not sure people really grasp that,” said Borders gamekeeper, Andy Buchan.
“For years, the Parliament has made our jobs harder. There’s not a part of what we do that hasn’t been picked apart. What we need is support, if we are to continue.
“There’s one thing for certain, the Government won’t meet its targets for the countryside or for the climate if the people who know the land have been pushed off of it.
“Who do they think will manage species like deer? Who will help the Fire Service fight the wildfires?”
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association. which represents 5300 members, says its jobs survey responses elicit real concern.
“While some places may have taken on the odd part-time staff member, the trend is clear and that is very worrying. Gamekeepers have been part of our cultural heritage for centuries. The Government needs to understand the seriousness and work with us to protect these positions, not dismantle everything,” stressed SGA Chairman, Alex Hogg, MBE.
