Rewilders apologise to Scottish farming community over 'deeply disrespectful' sheep article

Scotland: The Big Picture published the article “what’s a sheep worth?”, in which the author challenged the number and need for the woolly mammals in the country’s landscape today.

In the piece, the rewilder talks about how Scotland “supports some of the highest densities of sheep in the world, with their presence widely supported in the name of ‘cultural tradition’ rather than lamented as a threat to it.”

With recent predator reintroductions, including the sea eagle, which has been hailed a success by some conservationists, yet remains a contentious move for farmers given they predate lambs, the rewilder goes on to ask: “Do we really need so many sheep, grazing so much of our land?

“Are sheep so important that their needs must always trump everything else, including government biodiversity targets and the majority of the Scottish public, who support rewilding?”

The article caused a stir in the farming community, with the Cairngorms Crofters and Farming Community (CCFC) pushing back calling the piece “deeply disrespectful.”

CCFC said the narrative also showed a disregard for sheep farming’s social and cultural value, which it claimed supports local food production and “thousands of jobs.”

The rewilder, who is in charge of managing relations between communities and the charity, has since issued a formal apology to the CCFC, asking members to help the charity “do better in future by maintaining an open dialogue on these difficult issues that require everyone’s voices to be heard.”

The rewilder pointed out the conclusion was if either sheep farming or rewilding were excluded from future land management, it “would be a failure to compromise, robbing one group or the other of some key part of what makes our lives worth living.”

They added: “I still see the article as conveying the range of perspectives and values that lead to this conclusion, and was truly sorry to see it received differently.”

Some conservationists this week have pushed for the need for sheep numbers to help protect the country’s biodiversity.

In the wake of devastating wildfires in Scotland, the Moorland Association wrote to deputy prime minister Angela Raynor - who this month took over responsibility for preventing wildfires - saying the fall in sheep farming is leading to a dangerous build-up of dry vegetation, which could cause widespread moorland fires.