The plucky, unsung conservation heroes

For centuries, brave little dogs have played a vital role in keeping predators in check; they remain essential, says Sir Johnny Scott

- Sir Johnny Scott

The landscape of Britain is unique in the splendour of its diversity, from mountain and heather moors to wooded lowlands and coastal marshes, home to a vast array of wildlife. Two-thirds of all rural land in the UK is keepered and the natural beauty of the countryside is maintained by shooting estates spending more than £250m annually on conservation. This massive yearly expenditure is of incalculable benefit to the environment and provides safe habitat, food, shelter, roosting and nesting sites to a multitude of little farm and woodland songbirds. The ground nesters of heath, fen and marshes and the summer visitors who flock to nest and rear their young free from predation in a haven provided by the four million acres of UK grouse moors. The curlews, snipe, lapwings, golden plover, skylarks, meadow pipits, merlins, dunlins, redshanks and dotterels, who break the long silence of winter with their spring melody. Our declining population of black grouse and the remaining handful of endangered capercaille, struggling to survive in the forests of Deeside and Strathspey.

We have generations of gamekeepers to thank for protecting the vulnerable from being drowned in a tidal wave of adaptive predators – among them corvids, foxes, stoats and weasels. Despite the efforts of animal rights activists masquerading as conservationists and limitations on species control, it is the commitment of keepers that enables the rest of us to enjoy the poetry of our green and pleasant land. Where foxes are concerned, however, no keeper could do the job without his terrier.