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That's not their fault though. The deer are VICTIMS - victims of human mismanagement, ignorance, greed, and stupidity. It is "us" who are to blane, not the deer, not the animals, not nature.

great video

Well done. I did Lejog in 2013 aged 54 as it had been an ambition since I was a kid. I was physically spent by the end. I would quite like to do it again.

Love this Video 🎉

Why is the Deer (aka Venison) not being farmed? And if it’s not suitable for human consumption, then what about dog food? I find this conundrum perplexing. The deer can be humanely culled and for anyone who says they’re too spread out, have you seen an Australian pastoral property? Some are 100,000+ HECTARES. Our small paddocks are 10+ sq kilometres. That’s why we use helicopters 🚁 to muster stock.

You don’t need a fence, you need wolves.

I completely agree with this philosophy and would like to add that by immersing your self in 'natures wilderness', will give healing to your soul........

You don't need a fence, you need predators!! It's called a trophic cascade!

Wonderful, thank you from rural Romania❤

I’m so glad that I found this channel. I’m living vicariously through your lives 🤩

What are the boots you’ve just put on?

Or maybe you need wolves?

You need Wolf, Bring nature back in balance

I really hope we can see our native big predators like wolves, lynx, and bears be reintroduced to Scotland someday as they are just what the ecosystem of the Scottish Highland needs. They would hunt and kill Red and Roe deer, which would naturally control their blooming population and prevent overgrazing and restore the development of trees and forests as well as biodiversity. The real problem here would be farmers with their livestock, whilst the Eurasian lynx prefers to live and hunt in forests and woodlands. Wolves would cause them a few problems by feeding on animals like sheep and cattle. Measures like guard dogs could be required to solve this issue similar to mainland Europe.

get a pack of wolves back! it has its problems with farm animals but ...

A deer fence could help, but, in the long run, it could be necessary to reintroduce wolves and lynx. The thing is, however, rewilding Scotland with wolves is a bit like baking a cake, with wolves being the cherry on the top. Before we can reintroduce them, we need to work on restoring as much of their habitat as possible, educating the public about them and educating farmers about them, campaigning to ensure that they will be strictly protected and not culled or hunted and ensure that compensation will be paid to farmers for any livestock lost to wolves and ensure that farmers know and have the means to properly protect their livestock from wolves and also educate people on how to protect themselves and their dogs when in wolf habitat and, in the extremely unlikely event of an attack, how to defend themselves and their dogs against wolves and, ideally, provide them with the means and the knowledge to defend themselves and their dogs in non-lethal and non-harmful ways, such as loud noises on phones, rape alarms, etc. Then, we should be able to reintroduce the wolves and they can be an amazing success story, an amazing sight to see, a wonder to behold in Scotland and restore and maintain true ecological balance in Scotland…

Wolves? Or a massive ring of brambles? Probably wolves.

the townies don't like the deer being shot,they think of Bambi.😂

that wood out side Edinburgh looks great ,if that was England the woodland floor would be mostly brambles and bracken:(

Blessed are the ecologists for they shall inherit the earth :)

Just import some of these species from Ontario. There are many nests , often on top of hydro poles.

It's great planting all these trees but without predators to control deer numbers you're just planting deer food.

Give us back the Caledonian forest

I believe they need wolves, lynxes and bears, not fences

Hillsides bereft of habitation? Isn't that where the habitation which enables deer to thrive? As you are seeing, heather moorland left to its own devices becomes occupied by scrub/shrub willow which then give way to birch. What were the Highland clearances about? replacing people with sheep, not deer.

Yellowstone had a similar issue. They released wolves back into the place and the entire area regenerated. The solutions are not difficult. If wolves can live in the Netherlands, they can thrive in Scotland

Not enough natural predators.

I notice, in all these videos of rewilding in Scotland (and there are many), the voices are mainly English, whether owners or scientists.

Funnily enough there’s the RSPB put out a video 3 weeks ago complaining that all the grazing mammals have gone extinct so now they are having to cut in their forests and introduce livestock. Hmmm yet we have a deer problem. Like I’ve said many a time, fencing deer off just concentrates their numbers as the merge together because they cannot pass through the land. And then as is said within the first minute of this video an out cry of there are too many. If there are too many fencing them out doesn’t do anything. You need to manage numbers rather than complaining your neighbours have too many deer. Maybe catch a hundred up and give them to Abernethy then they won’t need to bring multiple farmers in to graze. Building a wall so you cannot see the problem doesn’t make the problem go away. But it does bring in grant money though doesn’t it. Maybe they area could have seen if someone wanted to take on the shooting rights of the place. Managing the deer coming onto the landscape like many of the neighbours will be doing. Land management is a wonderful thing. Another point the RSPB spoke about in their video. 36 years of ownership and they have many areas that have deteriorated because as they show, the land isn’t managed.

I don't live in Alba (though wish I did). So what I can do is send money to the John Muir Trust. Never a lot at a time. But it helps me to sleep at night. Thank you.

Very nice ride journey. hope our ebike kits can join next time.😍

Could we see the land rather than the people!

It's bad in my country but I, realised that it could be done by the protection of smaller areas or patches and then moving on.

Very interesting video just one thing the central reservation is also a artifical area due to the deer not being able to graze there . I do understand its a small area

Very interesting video. I’m fortunate enough to work for the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) here in the states. We have voluntary programs that encourage conservation programs on private lands that Address resource concerns. Other groups have programs like hunters for the hungry and Quality deer management programs. Some of our non government partners include Ducks unlimited, Grouse unlimited and others. At the end of the day we need to wisely manage resources for future generations.

Great film. And a perfect illustration of people not "tending their garden". I don't fault folks for not knowing what they don't know, so let's just get on with fixing the problem instead of crying over spilt milk. I would also point out that Scotland isn't alone in having destroyed their ecosystems. The first step is admitting you have a problem.... and that means you need to be brutally honest about what is actually causing the problem. If you have a burst water pipe, there's no sense in getting out the mop and bucket if you haven't first shut off the main valve to stop the flow of water. I bring that up because folks don't want to talk about "tending the garden" in any sense that might cause hurt feelings or get them called mean names. However, now is the time for that brutal honesty part I mentioned earlier. Scotland is a small place and for too long, the indigenous tribes of Scotland have turned their backs on the fact that they are actually the indigenous people of the land. As you open your borders and allow more and more foreigners in.... those people all need roads and houses and schools and whatever else people need. More people means more pollution, but also more pavement and other hard surfaces that cover over the local ecosystems. Guess what that means? Yeah, we need to be brutally honest and understand that there's only so much room. My brother just returned from Costa Rica and raved about how beautiful it was, and how hard the indigenous people of that nation worked to protect and preserve their ecosystems. And that includes things like making immigration really hard, precluding foreigners from buying property or opening businesses, etc. They put their nation, their people, first because they understand that they'd be overrun with "outsiders" if they didn't. Everyone wants to visit that tropical paradise, but it wouldn't be a tropical paradise for long if everyone who wanted to was moving there and paving over the place. In my area, we have what's called "Piedmont Sprawl". According to the studies, we've lost 40% of our open spaces in my lifetime, and are on track to lose another 30% in the next couple decades. That's open woods, farms, fields, meadows.... all gone. And it's completely changed not only the landscape, but the culture. 1-in-4 people are "non-native" now. All the traffic, pollution, congestion, aggravation, taxes, regulations.... everything's gone up, and not in a good way. Why? Because folks in the past forgot that they needed to "tend their garden" and that requires some brutal honesty.

Same on Dartmoor.

These beavers are amongst a clutch that are spearheading the way forward for nature restoration in the UK - a new epoch is beginning.

I always wonder what the natural grazing pressure was before human intervention. Back then, we did not only have different kinds of deer such as red, fallow and roe, but also elk, auroch, tarpan, wisent, waterbuffalo, ... Many more grazing animals in, probably, quite high numbers. Of course, there were also predators so the behaviour of the grazing animals would be different. But still, there would probably be forests that, through high grazing pressure, would eventually turn into grassland. And then eventually turn into forest again. We must not forget that natural habitats are dynamic. There is no 'end' or 'climax' habitat, these are circular and one turns into another sometimes, slowly as is. Grazing is a natural process, balanced out by predators. But 'natural' forest regeneration without any grazing is just as unnatural as no forest regeneration. Regenerating forests without any obstruction from grazin, flooding, ... creates overly dense woodlands where biodiversity will fall just as well, because a forest without those obstructions is just as well unnatural. Allowing light grazing within the fence would absolutly favor biodiversity. But so I wonder, how many grazing animals would have wandered our lands per km² in the past...?

Deer farming for hunting is a multi Million Dollar business in the UK and Scotland. It’s all bla bla, .

Many years ago Scotland was home to bears and wolves, but they were all shot out of existence, that's the problem the claim about climate change causing the problem is rubbish it's about securing money from the taxpayer.

Bring back the Lynx!!! Seems like the best option!!!

The C word? Bye.

manage it for profit same old story. greed.

Funny how everyone blames deer and it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot them, the government encourage deer to be shot, what about the hares that do just as much grazing damage, but wait they out a ban on culling hares! Unreal

Fencing is getting expensive over the time. Not sure if wolves will be the solution as they might get an appetite for animals on farms. A strikter hunting might be more efficient and less expensive.

Brits will do anything but reintroduce wolves

as this countries formost wolf experts, the only way to keep a check on the deer population is to have the apex predator, we dont nor ever will, the best we could and can do is re introduce the lynx, it will predate the deer young but not the adults, no chance of introducing the wolf to the UK, it has been tried in small studies but it didnt happen and the farming lobby is too strong for an attempt, pity really, the only country in Europe not to see an increased population of wolves, even Germany Belgium and Holland have breeding populations of wolves, again a pity. It would be a weird population dynamic if they were to be re introduced here, they would be concentrated up in the uplands of Scotland Wales and England, not where most deer are, which is in the farmland of England, so it would be of limited help in keeping deer numbers down.

Wonderful video. Keep 'em coming.

Don't forget that fire and grazing are very much part of the natural system.