red deer with white patches,to shoot or not to shoot!!!

bauldy bob

Well-Known Member
We have a couple of red on our neighbours patch a hind with a white face and her calf with a white nose!got talking the guy who stalks it and he tells me it is taboo to shoot them!!is he taking the mince or just dosent want me to take them if they turn up on our patch!!!!I am not wanting to upset him but our landlord is doing a lot of planting this year and has gave us a number he wants,and to be honest there is a lot of deer on his ground and the bottom line is we have to keep him happy!!so what do you guys think?if struggling for numbers do I take them or not!!
 
I only ever shot 3 hinds with the same condition.

Funnily enough all 3 were in the same season.

1 had a white side to her face, 1 had a white haunch down to the metatarsal and the other had a big white patch like a bullseye covering her engine room.

I dont see a problem in shooting them.
 
To be honest I think guy is wanting to shoot them himself,I know everytime I see them I am drawn to them,let's be honest most of us want to shoot a thumper or somthing a bit different!!
 
Here abouts, we sometimes see bald faced red deer, I think they are a throw back to park deer which were once enclosed at Taymouth by Lord Breadalbane or his predessors. I would leave them alone as they would be good markers for the rest of the deer if numbers need to be reduced.
 
What would happen to them naturally if we still had predators? This is what we should be trying to replicate surely?
They are abnormal, and if you leave them you are effectively promoting abnormality by selective culling. You could end up with a group of deer resembling Friesian cows!!:lol:
They will taste the same too!
It may be viewed as 'Taboo' by some but I doubt very much that they will return to haunt you, and if they do they will be instantly recognisable!:D
Shoot them if they fit within your cull plan regardless of colour.
If you don't, I suspect someone else will!;)
MS:)
 
Shoot them if they fit within your cull plan regardless of colour.

MS:)
this is what i think at the end of the day your shooting the deer to manage the herd not to make them look nice colours if a deer with a white, pink, black or blue patches needs to be taken then take it its not for others to decide what you should be doing
 
To be honest I was going to take them first chance I got,we have a lot of birds of prey,and a lot of walkers and twitchers,don't want anymore coming to take photos of the (magpie deer)don't want to see it on fxxxxxg Autumn watch knowing its hanging in the shed!!lol!!
 
I have shot a few with white faces all also had white hooves. The estate I shoot now does not shoot any like this even though it marches with the estate I originally shot. So you leave them some neighbour will shoot them.
 
I have only seen one or two Red deer with white on them in a lifetime of stalking. I used to have a pure white Roe buck on my patch until some poachers shot him. I know of someone local who shot a pure white Sika hind last year - which didn't go down well in the shooting community at all. It is just me, but I would never shoot one with white on it. I guess I was brought up in the old school of stalkers where it was considered bad luck to do so.
 
Think ill take my chances!!lol!! Seen the calf today while out on our pheasant shoot today,no sign of the hind,farmer says he has seen it on its own for a week or so ,so looks like someone's had the hind already,out next weekend think I'll make a point in taking the calf!!prob not come to anything anyway now.
 
Strange deer are poacher magnets, a friend had a white red deer calf born on his patch and the advice from the folk who managed the surrounding population was to shoot it before it became a celebrity and drew the poachers and bunny-huggers into such a small area that someone was likely to get hurt.
There is a reason for colour dominance and that is nature tends to allow predators to cull anything unusual, since there are no apex predators left in the U.K stalkers are the next best thing.
 
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