Faster culls risk rural job losses, warns Peter Fraser

Veteran deer manager issues stark warning

Peter Fraser, one of Scotland’s most respected red deer authorities, has called on the next Scottish Government to exercise caution over rising cull targets as he steps down as vice chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association after nearly two decades.

Mr Fraser made the announcement at the SGA’s AGM in Perthshire on 10 April, where he warned that pushing culls too hard, too fast risked collapsing the estate business models that currently sustain deer management across the uplands, and with them, around 2,500 rural jobs.

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Pressure on estates

“I’d like to see more common sense from all parties when it comes to deer,” he said. “We are in real danger of wrecking a lot of estates’ business models now because of the pace of the culls and the continuous demand for more.”

Government plans to increase the annual cull by up to 50,000 animals to meet biodiversity targets have drawn particular concern from Mr Fraser, who spent 43 years at Invercauld Estate in Royal Deeside before retiring as Head Stalker in 2012. He is the author of The Economic Importance of Red Deer to Scotland’s Rural Economy.

Citing his own experience on the hill, he described walking an entire Invercauld beat during the pandemic and finding just two stags and one hind where 25 stags and 40 hinds had previously been culled annually.

“Some people might think that’s great, but what people don’t realise is the amount of private investment that goes into deer management,” he said. “If we lose that, the onus for deer management will just revert to the squeezed taxpayer, so there needs to be common sense and a balance.”

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Public vs private burden

Freedom of Information material published in recent days indicates the taxpayer has spent close to £135 million on deer management, covering culling, fencing and equipment, over the past decade. Private estates, however, account for around 80% of Scotland’s annual cull, with private investment in deer management dwarfing that public expenditure.

Mr Fraser also pushed back against calls from some MSPs to remove fencing subsidies from forestry grant schemes, arguing that fences protecting newly planted woodland for 20 to 25 years ultimately reduce the long-term cost of contract deer stalking.

“A lot of problems were created when people started planting unfenced forestry schemes in the middle of the red deer range,” he said. “If you see forestry schemes in the lowlands today, they all have fences around them. I don’t know why the uplands are seen as different.”

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SGA leadership change

Mr Fraser will be succeeded as Vice Chairman by Perthshire gamekeeper Bob Connelly.