There’s a comical news item on BBC News today about the new generation of gamekeepers.
The Borders College and Scotland’s Rural University College in Fife said ‘the skills obtained by their students [on gamekeeping courses] were proving valuable to landowners’. Yes, aren’t they just.
According to Angus McNicol of Cawdor Estates, “It’s a highly-trained profession these days. It’s very different to how things were in the past“. Really?
What short memories they all have. Here are a couple of recent examples of newly-trained students, fresh out of gamekeeping college, who now have wildlife crime convictions:
1. Lewis Whitham, who was 19 when he was caught placing a Carbofuran-laced rabbit bait out on the hill on Leadhills Estate (see here).
2. James Rolfe, who was 19 when he was caught with a severely-injured dead red kite in the back of his landrover on Moy Estate (see here).
How very inconvenient when we’re supposed to believe that the criminal gamekeeper is of the old school, now dying out and being replaced by a new generation of ‘highly-trained professionals’. Nice try.
BBC News article here.
Raptor Persecution UK 
What a wonderfull piece of positive spin, being a cynic I,m always wary when someone volunteers good news. with the grouse season over only a month ago could it be many shoots layed their keepers off and are taking these young lads on in summer as cheap replacements, no numbers mentioed either, with only 350 or so estates in Scotland its good news for the lads but its hardly going to effect the economy. finally the £240 million mentioned spent on country sports in Scotland. the majority of this is spent by anglers but also includes equestrian sports, mountaineering, hill walking and many other activities. most shooting estates are run at a loss we are told despite be given thousands of pounds in grants from tax payers money. so in essence the tax payer is subsidising these jobs
The numbers are mentioned in this Scotsman article: 33 out of 45 graduates now in employment. So, really propping up the Scottish economy then. Or, as Alex says, “the figures are of massive significance”.
Scotsman chose an interesting photo to illustrate young gamekeepers. That one in the middle’s not looking too well.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/youngsters-dodge-the-dole-by-training-as-gamekeepers-1-2727716
Gamekeepers can’t wait to see birds of prey and other predators (wild cat, pine martin, foxes etc. etc.) become extinct. i can’t wait to see gamekeepers become extinct! I for one am fed up with subsidising them through my taxes.
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but you can certainly teach a new dog old tricks. Old, new, what’s the difference, they’re all the same when it comes to Raptor persecution.
Spot on RaptorpersecutionScotland, I would say the young man in the middle is still younger than all the Leadhills Keepers put together. Looks like he could do with a rest……..