Wednesday 11 April 2007

Better than Cattle


And more natural. There will be some apologists for the management plan who will say that highland cattle look good. And certainly they can appear cute. That is likely to be the reason they have been chosen. But they are to my mind nowhere near as splendid as Britain's largest wild animal. The small herd of red deer on Blacka came here of its own accord attracted by the very thing which the landscape managers want to control. They browse on the young birch and thrive in areas where nature, oh so untidily, does its own thing. Once we have fenced-in domestic livestock farmed on the land, a lot of the informal unplanned magic of Blacka will go.

Spotting wildlife especially the more retiring kind is something of an acquired skill.
If deer remain on the site when the cattle are brought in they may not be so obviously spotted by an eye becoming accustomed to the movement of other large beasts.

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