Deer die off over with winter

[Heym SR20]

Walking up in Glencoe at weekend. Found 8 dead deer over the space of a few hundred metres. All in gully’s / rivers and all looking in poor condition. Suspect they were seeking shelter and then got trapped in snow, or fell through soft or got taken in an avalanche. Whilst warm and sunny there was deep snow only a few days ago. Suspect had been there a while but only recently uncovered.

 

[User00003]

Fully agree,

with the immense amount of clearfelling and recent heavy handed culling (imho) as well, it may be a season to stalk and shoot with sense and moderation.

 

[Freeforester]

Lots lose a terrific amount of condition when disturbed in hard weather, using up critical reserves of energy that in many cases cannot be sufficiently replaced, tipping them over the edge in terms of ability to survive. Many professional stalkers prefer to leave the deer in peace in times of harder weather.

Not too surprised about the location, anywhere where constant disturbance by hillwalking happens sees a similar correlation between increased disturbance and winter mortality.

 

[User00047]

I take it we’re talking Red deer?

 

[pilgrimmick]

It is common for the deer to die after the winter, it is not the snow, but the lack of condition after the long winter months. They have probably all died recently, a carcase does not last long with crow/fox etc.

 

[Heym SR20]

Agreed lack of condition - and certainly others that I saw very out of condition as well. Also surprised at just how small the Red deer are. I know the west coast does produce small animals. I have sent quite a bit of time up on Skye on Blaven, and appreciate the controversial nature of the heavy cull that has happened. But the end result is fewer but large healthy beasts - they are regularly well over 20 stone now - like Reds from the Eastern Cairngorms.

Not wishing to start a fight - just an observation.

In Glen Etive there has been a lot of felling and new deer fences being erected to keep deer out of regen. I am sure this won't have helped either.

The Roe I manage in Fife and Lothians are also pretty skinny. Leaving them to put on a bit of condition before I take any.

 

[pitiliedon]

Winter mortality is normal, in good winters often confined to the diseased and surviving calves from culled mothers. In long periods of snow cover you can lose the whole cohort of current years calves. This is made worse by population concentration ,disturbance and our tendency to fence them out of traditional wintering ground. It is not starvation per say as stags often die at ad lib feed. It's just that red deer are very poorly adapted to living on our hills ,being a forest animal, they have minisule fat reserves and cannot metabolise enough from winter forage to sustain them if they can't get shelter lower down.

 

[Heym SR20]

Winter mortality is normal, in good winters often confined to the diseased and surviving calves from culled mothers. In long periods of snow cover you can lose the whole cohort of current years calves. This is made worse by population concentration ,disturbance and our tendency to fence them out of traditional wintering ground. It is not starvation per say as stags often die at ad lib feed. It's just that red deer are very poorly adapted to living on our hills ,being a forest animal, they have minisule fat reserves and cannot metabolise enough from winter forage to sustain them if they can't get shelter lower down.

And also in the forests etc they will get access to high protein nuts, beechmast etc on the forest floor - this little bit of protein then enables them to digest the poor winter forage available. Any ruminant can metabolise poor quality forage (eg straw) provided it has access to a bit of high quality protein.

 

[goathunter1]

Have a look for “winter inappetence” on google. Much good stuff there on why deer - and other animals - may die in the winter. There are threads on here in the past.

 

[Freeforester]

And also in the forests etc they will get access to high protein nuts, beechmast etc on the forest floor - this little bit of protein then enables them to digest the poor winter forage available. Any ruminant can metabolise poor quality forage (eg straw) provided it has access to a bit of high quality protein.

Good trace elements are also fairly fundamental for conversion of low quality forage, one seldom sees any animal's rumen empty (save the stags in the rut), but they can survive with poor q foodstuffs and in a lower state of metabolic activity providing they have access to trace elements in order to convert the forage usefully, they aren't too great at living at a high metabolic rate with eg concentrates and big intake in the period when they'd naturally be metabolising at a 'low' rate. Many supplementary foodstuffs also exacerbate tooth wear, which only helps to head them in the direction of the 'exit door'. This said, it sounds like poverty & exposure rather than 'excess' was the cause in your find.

FCS's new strategy of excluding via fencing will result in increased mortality for the future. Welfare issue?