Nature Conservation is the Responsibility of every HIKHunter

A Life in the Highlands

This spring will see my 46th year hunting deer, the majority of this time has been spent in the highlands of Scotland. During this time, the amount of change that has taken place is something I couldn’t have imagined when following in my family’s footsteps as a hunter.

The Wisdom of the Past

In the early part of my career, a larger body of individuals existed who shared knowledge and experience and updated one another as to the influence of weather trends, animal welfare, and overall numbers.

These peers provided a training network with access to a wealth of conservation data through memory and common practice.

Examples of this were manifold in the form of surviving calf-at-foot ratios for deer, ground-nesting bird survival rates, population sizes of game birds, and so forth. This network ensured good environmental conditions and, in the majority of cases, made sure that only the surplus was harvested.

This community approach dates far back in our history as a means of common resource management, in fact, Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel stated, “In all forms of land management, neighbourliness is a good thing, but in deer management, it is essential.”

Unfortunately for natural resources, our modern world has little time for such slow-moving, collaborative approaches. Instead, it relies on the fast-moving pace of the God of science. I personally believe that long-term sustainable land management is, in fact, a blend of both traditional art, time-tested throughout centuries, and the practical application of modern scientific learning.

Tradition Meets Modern Reality

Today, the level of scrutiny of what we do by the wider public at large has a huge influence on how hunting and hunters are perceived.
There is no doubt in my mind that, at the start of my career, nature was something that people looked at on holiday as a place for recreation.
Nowadays, it is front and centre in a large percentage of the population’s minds as something to be protected and restored to help maintain a healthy climate to enhance biodiversity.

In this modern world, the concept of taking an animal’s life for the good of conservation is, to the majority of our population, completely abhorrent and requires adequate explanation.

Managing Deer for Ecosystem Health

So why do we cull deer, and how do we justify our actions?
Increasingly, in this modern world, we need to explain the use of technology in the process of culling animals and the ecological science that supports this.

The cold truth is that nature is red in tooth and claw, and there are never occasions where an animal passes away surrounded by its friends.

That said, as intelligent, sentient mammals, we have a moral responsibility to deal with those animals around us and support our very existence fairly and humanely.

In the case of deer, it is simple to demonstrate that ecosystems have been fractured by the development of modern land use and the loss of species that maintain balance.

The Role of Technology in Modern Conservation

If deer are not controlled, they will simply eat themselves out of house and home and take a whole range of species with them into decline as they go. The art is in finding balance, and this is where modern thermal technology like the Habrok Pro is playing a crucial role as a monitoring and census tool. In many woodland environments, the mammals that we are talking about are shy, active only at dawn and dusk or during the night. As they don’t move around in the normal daylight hours that humans are active, it allows them to build up to high densities unobserved. High-density herbivores have a significant ability to do damage to even the most resilient habitats. With thermal technology, we gain the ability to detect deer from over 1 KM away, without disturbing them. And thanks to the HIKMICRO Shutterless Image System (HSIS), we can observe these animals in complete silence, never missing a crucial moment—keeping our efforts precise and impactful.

A classic case of this is the Japanese Sika deer (Cervus nippon). This close cousin of the red deer, by no fault of its own, found itself in the open environment of Scotland, where its introduction as an ornamental species put it directly in conflict with the genetic security of its close cousin, the red deer (Cervus elaphus).

Unfortunately, this process is now well along, and there is clear evidence that the Japanese Sika deer in Britain as a whole are, in the majority, hybrid.

Their ability to prosper, particularly on more acidic vegetation than their cousin in a number of scenarios, gives them an advantage. Halting their population expansion is essential to allow the restoration of natural ecosystem services and to protect the welfare of their indigenous cousin, the red deer.

Since my first encounter with a Japanese Sika stag over 50 years ago this year at Kinloch on the far northwest tip of the Scottish mainland, their population has multiplied many times over, and this species is widely spread, encroaching upon red deer range in every direction.

This is an opportunity, particularly with the equipment we have at hand, to exercise control measures and to record data both day and night. With thermal imaging, we can easily spot deer at any time of day or night. But that’s not all—the digital channel enhances this capability by providing detailed information about the animals, such as their sex and age, much like an optical binocular, but with superior performance during dawn and dusk. What makes this even more exciting is the ability to share images in real-time with the team, allowing for instant collaboration. Plus, we could capture photos and videos for later analysis and reporting. Recently, the latest firmware update has improved image stabilization when using the digital channel, ensuring even smoother and clearer visuals during my observations!

The Role of Technology in Modern Conservation

This is an article about responsibility, but we always want to highlight the role of our products in it.

HIKHUNTER have a role to play in a conservation story by holding the spread and, where possible, reducing the numbers of Japanese Sika deer and preserving our indigenous, genetically pure herd of red deer in forests and on the mountains of Scotland.

As we have demonstrated through the year in the life of Sika, it will take more effort and focused attention, on occasion passing by the easy red deer to catch up with the elusive Sika.
Adequate training and thermal technology will equip the modern Hik Hunter to be effective in this task and to record the data of what they do to demonstrate to the wider public that HIKHunters are caring, responsible members of the wider human community, caring for the natural environment and preserving our natural heritage for generations to come.

Today, I’m still fortunate to work in a field that I care deeply about and wholeheartedly support. I remain convinced that together we can restore much of what has been lost and prepare for a sustainable future.

*Before purchasing any thermal or digital day & night vision device, please make sure you adhere to the local ledislation and only use it when it is allowed. Our ambassadors come from various countries and travel a lot, which allows them to test different devices. We do not encourage or support the illegal use of our devices in any events.