With the Scottish deer stalking season underway, the Hillphones and Heading for the Scottish Hills online information services are both up and running.
The Hillphone service provides answerphone messages with information about stag stalking activities and suggested routes which will minimise disturbance. This system operates in 11 popular hill walking areas until 20th October, and is organised by Scottish Natural Heritage, the Mountaineering Council of Scotland and participating estates. For more details about the areas covered and for the relevant phone numbers see the Hillphones website.
Last year a new online information service was piloted by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH). This is operating again and has expanded to cover some estates in the Cairngorms and on the West Coast as well as the estates within the Hillphones and Blackmount areas. The service is map based, and you can also search for stalking information by typing in the relevant hill name and then choosing the result from a drop down list. Clicking on each estate should bring up information on current stalking activities, contact details, and dates when stalking never takes place, eg. at the weekend or just Sundays on many estates. At the moment the information provided by the estates varies in its usefulness, with some posting details of dates and locations, but most just posting general periods when stalking may take place and a phone number to call for more details. Presumably if estates receive a lot of telephone queries they may decide to utilise the online service to give out the more detailed information.
Walkhighlands is seeking to incorporate the deer stalking information on the relevant route descriptions so that users of the site can get the information very easily in one place. However in the meantime it is really worth checking out the latest stalking info before planning your next hill trip.
The Scottish stag stalking season officially runs from 1 July to 20 October with the hind shooting season then running on from 21 October to 15 February. However for most estates the peak stalking season is between August and October. Although stalking is permitted on Sundays, most estates comply with the convention that stalking will not be undertaken on a Sunday.