Wildlife on AGM’s agenda
Game keepers’ gathering
More than 100 gamekeepers, stalkers and fishing ghillies will descend upon Perth on Friday as the country’s foremost gamekeeping body celebrates its 20th anniversary at McDiarmid Park.
The Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) was formed in 1997 to represent the country’s gamekeepers, stalkers, river and land ghillies, wildlife managers and rangers at Scotland’s new Parliament.
From attending its first Game Fair at Scone with a scout tent and six borrowed straw bales, the Perth-based organisation has grown to encompass a membership of over 5300 people Scotland-wide.
Today it will recap on its journey so far, with the principal address to attendees being delivered by the cabinet secretary for environment, climate change and land reform, South Perthshire and Kinross-shire MSP Roseanna Cunningham.
The SGA has represented members in Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels, helping develop Scotland’s access code and demonstrating the biodiversity gains of legal predator control.
It has grown to become a key voice in developing Scotland’s deer codes and game seasons and providing best practice training in many aspects of land management.
Chairman Alex Hogg, a gamekeeper for over 40 years, said ahead of the AGM: “The SGA started with nothing but a shared desire from working people to inform folk better about their roles, which were often poorly understood.
“There was so much political pressure by opposing groups and charities that if we didn’t do something, with the Scottish Parliament about to come into being, there was a feeling ordinary folk would have lost their jobs.
“In that 20 years, I think the SGA has become a respected rural stakeholder providing an honest perspective of land management, straight from the people living and working on the ground who have thousands of combined years of practical knowledge.
“We have never taken one penny of public money for the work our members give back to Scotland. Yet without this work, I am convinced we would have lost some of our rarer species by now, like the curlew.
“We cont i nue to represent the skilled and dedicated working men and women who manage vast swathes of our countryside and rivers; a countryside that lures visitors to Scotland every year from all over the world and a sector which generates around £300m a year for the economy.”
Today’s member- only AGM will also feature talks on grouse moor management, restoration work on the River Carron, tracking injured boar and the bird flu restrictions currently in place in Scotland and the UK.