Best Thing

Talking to the regular walkers on Blacka is worthwhile but as we all tend to value the chance to get away from the crowds the opportunity may not come often. So it was worth listening to the words of a regular walker on Blacka on Sunday morning. They should be shouted loud and written large. Nailed, perhaps, to SRWT’s display boards.

“They're the best thing that's happened to this place,” he said and he was referring of course to the coming of red deer we are sometimes privileged to see; and these very deer came, completely unplanned, with no human input at all. And I knew from the way he said it that he was pretty unhappy with most of the management-driven changes here over recent years. And that, for him like me, the chance of seeing really wild animals resident on Blacka was an important stimulus to our visits.

We should say this more often because there is a strand of discussion that goes on mostly beyond our hearing that is quite different. Some of it is simply disapproval but it’s bolstered by the relative indifference of the conservation industry. Our failure to celebrate genuine wildlife only encourages those who exploit or attack it.

The deer are central to the dialogue we should be engaging in about the value of this land and its future. Because these large animals help us to see what is good in the landscape and its vegetation.  The fabulous beauty of Rowan trees hanging with red fruit in September is enhanced further when deer are moving close by. Bracken even is seen to have value when we see an antler or the ear of a hind moving amongst the fronds. And the scrubby growth of young birch and rowan, instead of being undesirable,  becomes vital when you see a young deer with its mother browsing the leaves.

The trouble is that if we don't say this enough, other voices and views prevail. We know the wildlife charities have mixed feelings about the deer. We know they don't go out of their way to protect them. We know their insufferably prescriptive projects are designed to work in some sort of wildlife-free vacuum where pet projects, usually surrounded by fencing, mustn't be disturbed by the unpredictable nature of genuine wildness; it's about being in control even when they make a hash of it in their own terms. Hence their failure to even know about the presence of roe deer as evidenced in their draft management plan at the end of last year, and their unwillingness to take precautions that might discourage deer from straying onto farmland and being shot. This follows on from their earlier failures to even accept the presence of the deer. See this post. “ Beautiful Beasts of Blacka Moor” indeed!!!!

The petulance of the Chief Executive's response is thinly disguised, itself an admission of the validity of the original post; why else would he bother?  Because underneath his managerial posturing lies a prosaic, literal, philistine vision that lacks any kind of educated view of what’s worthwhile in our approach to the natural world.

With all the conservation industry and their stakeholders you get the sense they have little difference with the established landowners including the farmers: they would actually prefer it if the deer would go away and let them get on with what they like to think of as nature, i.e. managed farmland.
Now they are factoring into their plans ways of keeping deer off the land. In limited areas admittedly, but still entailing intrusive fencing in the woods; the reason, allegedly, is to measure the impact of deer on these parts and compare with parts which the deer do access. But why would you want to do that? Unless that is you might foresee some possible 'unwelcome impact' i.e. damage to your deskbound planning exercises. If you do find some difference what follows from that? Because if some action would follow we need to know now what it would be. Culling perhaps? If not why bother with this intrusion into the land, spoiling its appearance for those who prefer land that shows freedom from human interference? So this is upheld as an exercise or experiment, 4 metre by 4 metre squares in woodland bounded by posts and wire.  Another absurd and unnecessary waste of public money and another project that’s just there to justify a manager’s job and show they’re in control.

They will use any argument however weak that helps them to be blind to the positives about the wild deer and conversely helps them to feel comfortable about them being culled. Farmers have done this for centuries about their stock being sent off to slaughter.

I picked this up the other day when an experienced stakeholder, veteran of many hours listening to the gospels of the local conservation mafia, referred to the deer as “Chatsworth escapes”  - as if that somehow disqualifies them from being fully accepted into the realm of wildlife. Are we saying “Only”? Wild or feral? So what? Would you dismiss divisions of humanity on the same grounds? Legitimate or bastard? Why would they need to mention that? Can't they see the beauty, the nobility the vulnerability of native wild animals living wild day and night?

I sometimes lose my patience with the failures of imagination and the self-serving mind-closings that characterise those who claim to speak for the countryside.