When the current reindeer experiment in Scotland is discussed I am sometimes asked: “Why try to introduce, or reintroduce, reindeer when there are probably as many red deer as the ground can carry and certainly more than the black-faced-sheep farmers want ?”

On my first visit to Scotland, nearly ten years ago, I was very proud to catch a glimpse of red deer grazing in the Spey valley. “The monarch of the glen” on a crag is a stately sight, or a herd galloping with heads held high. After the rut, on the other hand, stags become “lean as herons”, to quote David Stephen.