In reply to DaveHK:
I honestly don't know. However, I don't think I've ever seen grouse shooting going on in the areas where these fires have been recently but they're all in places that are not roadside, and in a few places like above Inverasdale they'd actually take some effort to get to, which again suggests not tourists! I have seen the estate feeding deer by the road side on the Fain in winter which is hardly a responsible action given a) there are too many deer already and b) encouraging more to stand by the side of a main road is hardly a good idea. With the exception of the Letterewe estate I'm not sure any of the local estates up that way are well run. The red deer population on my parents headland was getting out of control and the estate wouldn't do anything so a bunch of the locals took it upon themselves to stock their freezers and solve the problem themselves. My only thoughts is that it gives better grazing for the sheep as that's all there is on Gruinard, and maybe the grass that springs back up straight after is preferable over the old growth heather? I really am at a loss to understand why Gruinard was set ablaze though other than those possibilities and if it wasn't for all the other local fires which strongly appear to be set by the estate, I'd say it was a tourist going over for a jolly in a kayak and setting it from a bbq like some hapless cretin did on Loch Maree last year, but it's just too much of a coincidence.
Contrary to all of that I really don't have an issue with estate owners, just the laws and rules that are too relaxed and allow them to get away with things they have no right to do. But then look at the local bobby who torched tens of square km's from the back of Opinan and over to Slaggan and beyond; he's not wealthy and landed, he's just a boneheaded idiot for burning brush in a drought with strong winds!
