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| Finzean Estate receives the Golden Plover Award at Scone Palace. |
The Estate comprises 4,000 hectares, with
moorland representing just over a third of this area. Game and wildlife
management is undertaken to support a wide range of species, including black
grouse, golden eagles, merlin, curlew and lapwing. Red and roe deer are managed on both the open
hill and in woodland.
Wildcats have been recorded at Finzean, and a
real focus for conservation work has been the remnant population of capercaillie
on the estate. Targeted management has seen the creation of mown woodland rides
to regenerate blaeberry and other valuable foodplants beneath the forest canopy,
and this is repaid by the birds which continue to thrive on the estate amidst
dramatic national declines.
Until the 1980s, the moor produced bags of six
hundred brace of Grouse a season, but then suffered a steep decline in
fortunes. Since then, considerable effort has been put in to improve the upland
habitat alongside other conservation initiatives. This has resulted in a steady
recovery.
Balancing commitments to biodiversity across
farmland, woodland and upland is a very complex and delicate task, and it is the
key to all that the Golden Plover Award was intended to promote and support.
The
final decision was extremely close, and Gannochy was announced as a runner-up
for their commendable progress and hard work during the course of the past
decade.
Finzean’s owner Andrew Farquharson
and keeper Allan “Hedge” Shand were presented with the award by Heather Trust
Chairman Malcolm Hay at a ceremony held at the Scottish Game Fair on the 4th July.
A specially commissioned print by wildlife artist Colin Woolf was also
presented to the winners, and Andrew Farquharson dedicated the award to his
father, who he described as the pioneer of the thriving community which now
revolves around Finzean.
