Roe buck drowns after swimming from IOW

Not sure an animal in danger, difficulty or distress warrants use of the 999 system. Especially if they just drown it within touching distance of the shore with friends like that you wouldn't want them helping too often.
 
I've seen Roe swimming across from island to island around Stavanger in Norway, If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would have said it wasnt impossible! The currents are pretty strong around there, but the deer seem to use them to there advantage and go with the tide!

I can see how the Sika got off Brownsea Island onto mainland Dorset, as its quite sheltered and not that far.

I think the Roe that tried to swim from the Isle of White must have been washed out to sea as what would have been the attraction? A deer wouldn't have been able to see across?
 
I've seen Roe swimming across from island to island around Stavanger in Norway, If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would have said it wasnt impossible! The currents are pretty strong around there, but the deer seem to use them to there advantage and go with the tide!

I can see how the Sika got off Brownsea Island onto mainland Dorset, as its quite sheltered and not that far.

I think the Roe that tried to swim from the Isle of White must have been washed out to sea as what would have been the attraction? A deer wouldn't have been able to see across?

There’s Sika on Brownsea?.
 
I could be wrong but I believe that's where they escaped (swum) from and populated Dorset?

Here you go:
In the 19th Century it was fashionable among the landed gentry to introduce exotic animals to large estates. The sika or cervus japonicus were brought to Brownsea from Japan when the island was owned by an MP named Major Kenneth Balfour.
The deer were not contained and a failure to realise that deer can swim meant it wasn't long before they made it ashore to the mainland. Many made the crossing in 1934 to escape a terrible fire which swept across the island.

By the 1970s some of the deer had swum back and their population on Brownsea has grown since then. Many instead set up home in the woodlands and heaths of the Purbecks and in particular the Arne peninsula, on the shores of Poole Harbour.

I got that of BBC Dorset's website - is there a difference between cervus japonicus and cervus nippon? I thought the Latin name for Sika was cervus nippon?
 
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I once helped a roebuck across the Tay when it got into difficulties in high water.
They made a habit of crossing at that point but the current was too strong for this one.
I just took the boat out, grabbed it antlers and pulled it into the side. It ran off non the worse. The river would be about 100 yards wide there with strong currents.
 
I could be wrong but I believe that's where they escaped (swum) from and populated Dorset?

Here you go:
In the 19th Century it was fashionable among the landed gentry to introduce exotic animals to large estates. The sika or cervus japonicus were brought to Brownsea from Japan when the island was owned by an MP named Major Kenneth Balfour.
The deer were not contained and a failure to realise that deer can swim meant it wasn't long before they made it ashore to the mainland. Many made the crossing in 1934 to escape a terrible fire which swept across the island.

By the 1970s some of the deer had swum back and their population on Brownsea has grown since then. Many instead set up home in the woodlands and heaths of the Purbecks and in particular the Arne peninsula, on the shores of Poole Harbour.

I got that of BBC Dorset's website - is there a difference between cervus japonicus and cervus nippon? I thought the Latin name for Sika was cervus nippon?

Talk about coincidence, the Jap Sika in the Borders stem from Dawyck Estate, also owned by the Balfour family.
 
Didn't know that there was any deer on the wight
Public sector misinformation I'm afraid, they want to covertly use the island as an experimental deer free zone to in their words "compare and contrast" with woodlands across southern England.
 
Public sector misinformation I'm afraid, they want to covertly use the island as an experimental deer free zone to in their words "compare and contrast" with woodlands across southern England.

About time they closed the FC down Tim, it costs us a fortune.
 
About time they closed the FC down Tim, it costs us a fortune.

Wrong, hot air! When you consider funding for the FC and the forestry sector receives with the subsidy funding the Agri sector receives it's like comparing the size of a marble with a hot air balloon. Approx £50m versus £4bn per year.
 
Wrong, hot air! When you consider funding for the FC and the forestry sector receives with the subsidy funding the Agri sector receives it's like comparing the size of a marble with a hot air balloon. Approx £50m versus £4bn per year.
That's not the point, the real question is should the FC be using the island as an experimental deer free zone?

There has been no public consultation exercise and had there been one the notion would have been soundly rejected.

To be clear on this we are not looking at the usual best practice management objective of containing deer numbers to reasonable levels but a determined effort by FC Lyndhurst to exterminate all the deer in an entire English county, including the native species. A FOI request reveals the cost to the taxpayer to be in excess of £ 2400 per deer killed, and there is the environmental cost of having too little large herbivore grazing such as the loss of the island's Tawny Owls.
 
To be clear it is a valid point in response to 4th horseman. State or EU funding to our woodlands is comparatively small beans.

FC would struggle to 'exterminate' all deer from an 'entire English county' because not all that land or woodland is Public Forest Estate and they do not have management control over the whole county.
 
Tim also your point about tawny owls is interesting. It would take rigorous and expensive research to show that absence of deer is responsible for any reduction in tawny owls, I am not sure any work like this has been undertaken. Tawny owls are still common, however there is plenty of research and evidence to show that deer pressure and the resulting lack of regeneration and ground flora is directly responsible for the decline in priority woodland birds (which Tawny owl isn't).
 
Tim also your point about tawny owls is interesting. It would take rigorous and expensive research to show that absence of deer is responsible for any reduction in tawny owls, I am not sure any work like this has been undertaken. Tawny owls are still common, however there is plenty of research and evidence to show that deer pressure and the resulting lack of regeneration and ground flora is directly responsible for the decline in priority woodland birds (which Tawny owl isn't).

Tawny Owls are largely absent from the island, the research that pertains to linking this with deer is by AJA Stewart, JR Flowerdew and SA Ellwood amongst others, the references to the FC exterminating all of the island's deer are detailed in their FDP 2017 and their South England deer policy
 
Thanks Tim, for the reference.
Whilst I guess they could have a crack at the reds if they are all hefted to FC woods, and FC are the only/main woodland holding on the island. Even then they can't shoot on others land and reds wise up to where they aren't safe. I am not familiar with your woods, but I can't imagine they would achieve the same with roe which will be happy in shelterbelts and small copses etc, even if the FC managed to kill them out on the FC estate - which I think they would find almost impossible, even if they used night shooting, dogs (illegal), extended seasons etc etc. All of which they have policies against in England except in very rare and exceptional circumstances.
 
Update:- There's an eye witness account of this deer being chased into the sea by some dogs at Puckpool on the island in this weeks IW County Press.
 
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