Wild Camping and Sheep
It has been reported that the shadow environment minister, Alex Sobel, has said that ‘Labour would legislate so that people visiting national parks have the right to wild camp’ (Helena Horton, The Guardian, 4th August 2023). Labour is a political party in the UK. The National Parks concerned are those in England.
Largely, National Parks in England are marginal lands. Therefore, sheep are present in them in considerable number. So, it is worth thinking about what could be the situation and might be the effects and outcomes if wild camping was happening on land where sheep are present. As context is that recently in the UK, ‘the court of appeal ruled that wild camping on Dartmoor [a National Park] was lawful without landowner permission, overturning a high court ruling in favour of a landowner who wanted to ban the practice.’ (Helena Horton, The Guardian, 4th August 2023)
If wild camping with permission was to occur on National Park land, or any rural land, which is a habitat of sheep, humans would be occupying areas of sheep presence for extended hours and, moreover, would be engaging in new and additional kinds of activity. They would be in sheep’s territory, not just during daylight hours but during hours of darkness too. So, sheep would have no ‘downtime’ of peace and quiet.
For humans, wild camping will be a lovely idea and ideal. It represents having access to nature at night as well as day and with all the fresh experiences that night-time can bring and offer. It can be imagined that giving opportunities for wild camping can deliver circumstance to possibly engender activities such as: revelling; noisy partying; heavy consuming of alcohol; lighting fires for heat and food cooking and which could get out of hand; leaving litter and detritus dangerous to sheep, for example, broken glass and tin cans. Such human activity would, at the very least disturb and frighten sheep, and could deliver worse harm to them than that. Clearly, education and regulation will be needed to try to avoid harm being done to animals and environment. It can be hoped that humans will display wisdom and responsibility in wild camping, will adhere to ‘leave no trace’ principles, will do nothing to cause upset or harm to sheep, but will they all behave well and appropriately? Wild campers have cover of darkness. And how is wild camping to be monitored and managed? Worth remembering is that, while shepherds/sheep farmers regularly check the sheep in their care, nowadays sheep are on their own most of the time, whether in or outside a National Park.
Wild camping in a place where sheep are present is to put human want above sheep need and welfare. It is inconceivable that wild camping in National Parks would not deliver some adverse circumstances to the sheep residing in them.