The desecration of Dartmoor

I walk on Dartmoor often, in all weathers and in different areas.  I have done this for many years but I always question the presence of sheep. They seem like an infestation. They leave their droppings everywhere making the whole area unpleasant, impossible to have a picnic on the ground and in the summer it stinks.  I am sure they also reduce the numbers of skylarks by disturbing their ground nests. Skylarks are one of the glories of summer on Dartmoor.

                Until recently, I have assumed we all have to put up with the sheep because they are ‘natural’, they provide a living for the upland sheep farmers, we need the meat and their grazing keeps Dartmoor as it is ‘meant to be’. This all changed recently for me – especially since I started to have the scientific attitude of ’trust no one’  ( The motto of the Royal Society ) until you have seen and proven it to yourself. This obviously doesn’t apply to, for example, to the existence of the Higgs Boson, I have to take that on trust as I do not have an LHD in my garage and so have to believe what the majority of scientists say but I can look at Dartmoor and begin to question the presence of the sheep. I am now very distrustful of everything that people say – even scientists. I shamelessly use Richard Dawkins aphorism and say, ‘Show me the evidence’.

                I tend to divide my trips to Dartmoor into expeditions to look for and examine a particular geological exposure or mineral outcrop. This has recently included Aplite veins near Okehampton and Quartz Porphyritic dykes and sills ( Elvans ) in the granite tors near Belstone. One day I decided to look for tin mines and Cassiterite ore in the Eylesbarrow area, taking in a look at the stone rows on Higher Hartor Tor on the way. ( Found some beautiful 25cm Feldspar crystals in this area ) I wandered around the old tin workings, picking up samples of ore. I found several mine shafts and their partly filled in remains were fenced off, thus preventing human accidents and, in the process, preventing sheep from grazing the slopes down into the shafts.  These slopes were green and verdant with long, lush grass and luxuriant blueberry bushes. This was unlike the devastated vegetation I had seen over the years on many other parts of the moor. All that was left there was the vegetation that the sheep had rejected. It could also be that, in addition to the exclusion of sheep, the plants were sheltered in a micro climate but I still think, and it would be easy to prove by fencing off an upland, unprotected from the wind, area to see what would happen.

                While I munched on my cheese and pickle sandwiches I wondered what the moor would look like if all the sheep were removed for say ten years? Would trees return? Would there be many more birds and other wild life? Would it be a much moor natural, pleasant place? What would happen to the sheep farmers? Would it cost a lot of money that the nation could ill afford? What would we do about the loss of sheep meat produced.

                What would happen if Dartmoor was turned into a real national park and all sheep and cattle were banned?

                Since that day of questioning I have done quite a lot of research, with the following results:

There would be an increase in volume and diversity of plants, although it would take many years.

 It would save the Country money because of a reduction in hill farming grants – at present averaging £20,000 per farmer although for some landowners like the Duke of Westminster they are in the hundreds of thousands – no cap for these benefit claimants!

There would be an increase in numbers and diversity of birds and wild life.

There would be a reduction in floods downstream because of the growth of deep rooted plants that would store rainwater on the high ground, and reduction in hard pan froming because of the trampling of sheep’s sharp hooves.

Because of the decrease in downstream flooding there would be more fertile land available for productive farming and so there would probably be a net increase in meat produced from the area.

Some of the larger fauna, could be reintroduced from other countries

There would be very few jobs lost, probably an increase in fact, as the sheep farming jobs would be replaced by rangers, fencing work, forestry work, general ecology work and tourist centre work as the Moor becomes a much more attractive place to visit.

It would eventually become a balanced ecosystem although mankind would probably still have to, for example, cull excess deer numbers because of the missing top predator – unless we were bold enough to introduce lions etc..

I don’t have the knowledge or expertise to argue the case so I will leave it to George Monbiot who has written a persuasive article called, ‘Sheepwrecked’

http://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/30/sheepwrecked/

and a book called:

FERAL. Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding.

The Loch Ness Monster

Doctor Henry Lancaster slowed and then drew his VW pop-top into the layby overlooking the loch. It was his first sight of Loch Ness so he was impressed by the beauty of the calm water framed by the mountains on the other shore. He caught himself scanning the water surface for any ripples or other sign of an unexpected presence. He grinned to himself. ‘If it was that easy, there would be uncountable accounts of sightings over the years,’ he told himself.

                Starting the engine of his old, but reliable VW, he set off on the loch-shore road again until he saw a boat pulled up from the Loch with an old man sat on a stool beside it and a sleeping dog on the beach by his side.

                ‘Boat and boatman for hire, please ask.’ Said the sign propped up against the boat.

Henry stopped. ‘Are you free?’ he asked.

                ‘Aye, I’m free, I’ve been waiting for thee

                Myself and the dog are all agog

                To hear why you want a boat

                We’ve been watching since you were a mote

In my eye to see

                Why you want to float, in a boat, on the Loch?’

Henry was a little taken aback by this. He wondered if this old man with his sleeping dog was quite right in the head or was he just a very bad poet. The man and his boat was exactly what he wanted so he thought he would press on and risk getting trapped in a boat with a nutter – at least he would have the dog to talk to, he liked a bit of doggerel.

                ‘I would like to hire you and your boat for a week. I am a palaeontologist from Brecon University. I am carrying out some research into plesiosaurs. I am trying to prove once and for all that there is no monster in Loch Ness and, even if there was something unusual here, it is certainly not a plesiosaur. As you know, it is difficult to prove a negative, but I feel I have to try. Have you always been a boatman?’

                ‘I used to be a shepherd,

but I kept on losing me sheep.

So I taught my dog to count them.

Then all he did was sleep.’

After a long and somewhat difficult conversation because the boatman usually talked in verse, they agreed that the he would take Henry wherever he wanted on the loch for a week. He introduced himself as Hamish McGonagall, one of the Skeltonic poets. He was proud that he was descended from the greatest Skeltonist of them all, William McGonagall.

                ‘The story of the Tay Bridge disaster

                Was documented well by the master

                It may be too long

                And the language so strong.

                But it just makes you read it all faster.’

They decided that they would leave the dog on the shore, having jointly agreed that they would leave a sleeping dog lie. Henry did wonder why a sleepy sheep dog would tell lies but he didn’t ask Hamish for fear of finding out what rhymes with ‘sheep dog.’

            ‘Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster,’ asked Henry rather bravely after they had been on the water for a couple of hours.

            ‘Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?’ Asked Hamish somewhat Delphically.

                ‘Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’’ asked Henry, trying to get away from metaphysics – it was not his subject, he was a simple old bone man.

                ‘Maybe,’ said Hamish

Henry sat in silence for a while, his brain was starting to hurt.

                ‘Have you seen the monster?’ Henry tried again.

                ‘That depends.’

                ‘What does it depend on?’

               

                ‘I call the monster Beauty

And beauty is in the eye of the beholder

But when you have something in your eye,

ye cannae see anything

So I haven’t seen Beauty but I see beauty all the time.’

‘Right, that’s true’, agreed Henry, who was getting somewhat baffled and frustrated about not getting a straight answer to his questions.

‘Do you think there is a monster in the loch.?’ Henry wasn’t going to give up yet.

‘If I think, ‘yes’, does that create a monster or

If I think ‘no’ it blinks out of existence?

Does the life of the monster depend on me?

Am I responsible for its creation?

Doesn’t bear thinking about.

Too much responsibility.

Henry decided that he would give up for the day and change the question. ‘Do many of the monster hunters you have taken out on the Loch believe that the monster really exists?’

‘I’ve found there are three type of Monster hunters – those who believe in the monster and those who don’t.’

Henry waited for the next line, but none was forthcoming.

‘If there is a monster in the loch, do you think it might be a plesiosaur?’ asked Henry, trying a different tack, even though the wind was light and the boat didn’t have a sail. ( He wanted to have a try at this Skeltonic stuff ).

Somewhat surprisingly, Hamish answered with a logical argument.

                ‘The youngest plesiosaur has been found in Cretaceous strata that is about 65 million years old. That works out at 6.5 million generations if you say that the plesiosaur parents are about ten yours old on average when their offspring are hatched. This is plenty of time for dinosaurs to have evolved into something else.  As the youngest dino fossils have feathers on them, we think they evolved into birds and flown away from Loch Ness. But, if they stayed around here, you would have to look for birds.

Remember that there are two great rules of life:-

                1 – Never tell everything at once.

                Did you see that seagull fly past us just now?’