THE APPLICATION for a special 'research' licence to control marauding ravens in Strathbraan (see page 16) should be some succour to farmers who have lost barrowloads of lambs to the predators this year.

However, the fact that it has been requested because of the ravens' predilection for ground nesting birds' eggs, and not because of their economic impact on sheep farming, will more than raise an eyebrow or two. That will be especially so in the Western Isles where hungry hordes of ravens have been pecking their way through lambs' tongues, navels, eyes and the udders of prostrate sheep in the act of lambing.

It tells you just how far down the pecking order – if your pardon the pun – the livestock industry is in the view of Scottish Natural Heritage. What would really make a difference would be if it were to issue its 'special' control licences in areas worst affected by predation on sheep – and there have been many requests to do so.

Sheep form the backbone of rural communities in fragile areas of the West Coast mainland and islands, and to deny crofters and farmers a right to a living while the many legally protected predators lie in wait for the next ewe to lamb or cow to calve, is neither morally nor economically sound.

The rights of livestock merit some attention too. Maybe we should be breeding curlews?

As it stands, the bags and bags of dead lambs amount to an economic pressure on a fragile infrastructure that simply should not be allowed to happen.

At current prices, hill lambs have been hitting £100 or more as finished hoggs – a price which has attracted many ewe lambs to follow their male siblings down the killing line. There is no doubt that breeding sheep are going to be scarce this year and next.

An own goal?

SCOTTISH AGRICULTURE is in danger (again) of being a political football kicked from pillar to post while the Westminster and Holyrood governments slug it out over the Brexit issue.

And they are making a right dog's Brexit of it. The politics of 'a big boy did it and ran away' and 'it's my ball and you're not playing' are not going to help the cause of farming.

Whether you voted for Brexit or not is now largely irrelevant, which means that all this politicking is getting in the way of setting up a fit-for-purpose framework for what could be a bright new dawn for Scottish agriculture.

There is a chance that we could remove ourselves from some of the absurdities thrust upon us by EU-wide diktat, to something that really supports a sound agricultural industry. At the moment, that chance is slipping away because of own goals ...