Glorious Twelfth to start with a bang as grouse hit 1m mark

Published on Monday 10 August 2009 21:58

ON THE eve of the Glorious Twelfth, gamekeepers are reporting a bumper year with nearly a million red grouse on Scotland's heather-clad hills and moors.

The pre-season counts carried out by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWVCT), an independent wildlife conservation charity, shows numbers are up approximately 25 per cent on recent years in most areas.

Despite the heavy rain of the last two summers, chicks hatched in late May and early June benefited from dry, sunny weather and have survived, promising a good season this year and for 2010.

Those in the industry say this future productivity makes investing in Scotland's sporting estates a highly attractive proposition for "cash rich" businessmen, overseas investors and syndicates keen to buy into an iconic Scottish tradition.

The shooting season, including grouse, stags, partridges and pheasants, is worth an estimated 30 million to the Scottish economy annually and provides approximately 600 full-time jobs in rural areas.

The sport is a highly profitable investment with a day's driven grouse shooting costing between 130 and 170 for a brace (pair] of grouse. A typical party of eight people could shoot 100 brace a day at a net total cost of between 13,000 and 17,000.

Local hotels and businesses also benefit from an influx of customers during the four-month grouse shooting season.

The research from GWCT shows some moors have the biggest "shootable surplus" in five years, with Perthshire and Stirlingshire seeing the best productivity of grouse.

Grouse counts in Angus are "consistently up" up on last year and a small rise in productivity is reported in Moray, Nairn, Banffshire and parts of Inverness-shire Deeside and Donside.

However, parts of Dumfriesshire, Ayrshire and Lanarkshire have been badly hit in recent seasons by ticks, predators and infestations of heather beetles, meaning that grouse stocks are low in many cases. The trust said prospects are good for the shooting season in the Pentlands and the Lammermuirs, despite July's poor weather.

Dr Adam Smith, the trust's Scottish policy officer, said: "The red grouse has done well.This year's productivity is good in many areas and the improved young-to-old ratio is a sure sign of a healthy population.

"It is great that many of those who continue to invest heavily in moorland management are going to be rewarded this season, with some of our counts predicting the prospect of the biggest shootable surplus since 2003."

Ian McCall, the trust's director for Scotland, said: "Hopefully a good season in 2009 with appropriate harvesting levels may mean a purple passage for grouse and the hills in the next few years."

There are over 460 grouse moors in Scotland and northern England. The Scottish Countryside Alliance revealed in a survey in 2007 that 25 new owners were injecting over 10m a year into Scottish grouse moors.

Among the new breed of owner is Vladimir Lisin, Russia's second-richest man, who bought the 16th-century Aberuchill Castle with its 3,300-acre estate at Comrie in Perthshire for 6.8m.

Robert McCulloch, of Strutt and Parker land and estate agency, which manages estates across Scotland, said: "Driven grouse shooting retains an allure and mystique like no other field sport."

Ex-Jenners boss turned farm into shooting estate

ROBBIE Douglas Miller is typical of the new breed of businessmen and investors bringing in badly needed cash to transform Scotland's moribund grouse moors into profitable shooting estates.

Douglas Miller, who was managing director of Jenners, the iconic Princes Street store, until he and his family sold it to House of Fraser, bought the 3,000-acre Horseupcleugh estate in the Lammermuir Hills in 2005.

Since then, he has invested over 200,000 and used his managerial skills to change what was largely a Borders sheep farm into a profitable sporting estate, charging clients 150 for each brace of grouse shot.

He says that, while moving from running Jenners to managing a grouse moor may appear to be a drastic career move, there are many similarities. These include attracting a wide customer base, moving with the times and altering the image of an iconic but "dated" Scottish institution.

"So much of what I learned in Jenners has been transferred into running the estate," he said.