How often, have we heard this?
FC out with night vision kit, finding more deer than were thought to be? BIG WOW!
I was doing this work in and around Notingham Forest 16 years ago and no one took any notice. We found 4x the deer that the locals thought there was!
I am often shocked at the amount of deer in some areas of England and the state of the woodlands, certainly wouldn't be acceptable in Scotland. Kielder was an absolute disgrace a few years back.
This highlights the importance of deer management , which is good. It also highlights just how disorganised the whole thing is.
Remember that most of the deer in England are of exotic origin!
Absolutely spot on, a large degree of responsibility for the situation today lies with the FC and BDS, who years ago made a very big deal about your 'annual census', what a waste of time. Count a quarter of the deer you have and shoot 30% of them, not difficult to see where that leads. Today the policy of reducing numbers to a level at which damage is acceptable, regardless of numbers culled may seem a bit draconian, but had that been the policy 40 years ago then we would not have this situation today. Also agree with another poster who said that fallow and muntjac are the problem species