Montane Scrub

Natural Heritage Management

• Foreword
• Introduction
• What is montane scrub
• The loss of the ‘wee trees’
• Plants of the scrub
• Wildlife in the scrub
• Restoring the landscape
• The woods and the trees
• Shelter on the hill
• Game benefits
• Enjoying the hills
• Ecological values
• Action for scrub
• Bringing back the ‘wee trees’
• Further reading

Game benefits

On sporting estates, well-designed restoration and expansion of montane scrub would be unlikely to have significant negative effects on game stocks, and some game species would benefit directly from an increase in habitat. One particularly important species that might benefit is the black grouse. Its numbers are currently in such serious decline, as a result of loss of habitat and collisions with deer fences, that it is no longer hunted on any significant scale. The improved grazing and shelter would also increase the carrying capacity of the land for red deer.

Some estate owners express concern about a perceived conflict between the recreational use of hill land and field sports, particularly deer stalking. They argue that conspicuously-clad walkers disturb deer during calving and make them more difficult to stalk, either for sport or population management. Whatever the true scale of this impact, it could be reduced significantly by an expansion of montane scrub. Walkers would be somewhat less visible whilst amongst the scrub, and the additional cover would make deer much less susceptible to disturbance.