Oh deer…

J and I went to the Scottish Deer Centre today.  It is just down the road from us and we must have driven past it at least 100 times in the last year.  And I have kept saying “We must go there”.  We did – sad to say it was not a great experience.

Some of the things were not the Centre’s fault; but all in all we did not enjoy ourselves.  It must have been at least 25C by mid-morning, and the whole place was packed with very loud children.  Probably because of the heat, many of the animals were in hiding, but also some of them were plain not there (no wolves for example – perhaps they are off trialling the re-wilding project).  Of the animals we did see, most of them were deer and (yes, I knew this before we came) the native ones I had seen plenty of in my own garden until last year.  The enclosures were not massively well maintained either (although there was nothing actually bad – just a bit scruffy).

What gave me most misgivings, and I have to say I have changed my stance on this over the years.  I do not like seeing higher animals and birds (particularly predators) kept in captivity for the amusement of human beings.  There were bears (suffering very badly in the heat) and also a golden eagle and a snowy owl – these made me very sad to see.  I understand the necessity for having animals in captivity for conservation – but I no longer agree with displaying them for “educational” purposes.  If it is education we are after, we can get a hundred time better views on a decent nature program on TV than by squinting into a cage at some poor trapped creature to take photos of it.  So no more zoos for M.

There was one good thing, however, we found a play park – and not only did it have some decent adult swings which I had a good swing on, but it had a “death slide”.  I have loved these since I was a child, so with some difficulty I managed to pull the seat up to the top of the wire on my own, and go shooting right across the park.  “Did you get a photo?” I said to J.  “Better than that” he said “I took a video”.  So eager to see my intrepid flight, I took a look at his phone.  In the excitement he had forgotten to press “Record”.  So now I have no evidence and you will just have to take my word for it.