How my tartan taste has changed

[Alan H]

Here's a bizarre twist on the whole thing that just reflects how my brain works.

Preservation of natural environments is a cause I seriously get behind, though I know it's not a high-profile topic here on X-Marks. I worked for years teaching kids about environmental science and the marine ecology of San Francisco Bay. Joan and I give money to organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and Earthjustice.

In Scotland, there's a wild bird known as the capercaillie. Here's a picture of a male capercaillie, displaying..



capercaillie aren't just found in Scotland, they're found in several countries in northern Europe, but the capercaillie in Scotland is kind of a symbol for a huge problem in the British isles, in fact a huge problem worldwide. It's habitat destruction.

capercaillie live in low scrub and pine/oak forests. This is a perfect description of the ancestral Caledonian forest, which is mostly gone, now. Because of that, the numbers of capercaillie have dropped precipitously over the past 100 years, going from something like 30,000 breeding pairs in Scotland, to I believe less than 5,000. That's not a lot of capercaillie in a land which used to be crawling with them.

Here's the RSPB web page about capercaillie.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/bird...llie/index.asp
I would love to see one!

Well, in August, 2006, Locharron designed and started weaving the capercaillie tartan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/s...nd/5258248.stm

Which you can see here, adorning the very attractive frame of Miss Scotland, 2006.



I would wear this tartan, and in fact plan someday to own a kilt in it. WHY?

Because 7 percent of the proceeds of the sale of the tartan go to the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds), which understands that the REAL issue here is habitat loss. I am totally behind that cause, both in terms of education and doing something RIGHT NOW, like buying land and restoring it to forest.

I don't know another tartan that has a direct connection to a crucial conservation issue, and that is something that I have a connection to.....and therefore I would wear a capercaillie kilt. Why, in my guts, I would wear a capercaillie tartan kilt because of my convictions concerning conservation issues, but can't bring myself to wear a kilt in the Edzell tartan to honor my fathers military service, I leave for you to ponder. But I can't.

Scotweb can get you a kilt in the capercaillie tartan, BTW.