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Craigadam offers excellent opportunities for stalking Roe Deer, for experienced
and novice stalkers. Estate rifles can be hired. Some 100 Bucks are taken every year and a similar number of does.
All stalkers are accompanied by experienced guides, and there is the capacity
for up to 5 rifles to be out at any one time.
The Roebuck season is from the 1st April to the 20th
of October. In the summer Roebuck season the duration of the stalks is 4 to 5
hours in the morning and 2 to 3 hours in the evening. Winter stalking of does
is during the day.
About Deer Hunting... :
The last Bear and the last Wolf in Scotland were killed several hundred years ago.
Since that time, the Red, Roe and Fallow Deer, have had no other
predator other than the human race. This has led in some areas to the numbers
of deer reaching unsustainable numbers. Their foraging has stripped the surface
of vegetation, so increasing erosion and other environmental damage. Deer
are also a serious problem for forestry; the restoration of the ancient
Scottish Pine forests has been hampered by deer eating the
recently-planted trees. This is in addition to the losses to plantation
larch and spruce needed for sustainable timber production.
Foresters and Countryside Rangers now routinely cull deer
in National Parks and National Nature Reserves such as the Cairngorms, to
prevent erosion and to maintain the health of the deer population. This also
produces a wild harvest of deer-meat (venison) whose sale helps finance the
rural population.
Richard Pickup is recognised for training visitors to the high standards
of markmanship of the British Deer Society Certificates. The emphasis at
Craigadam is on the traditional skills of stalking and woodcraft, with the
deer killed with one shot in seconds.
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